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Major US Airlines Gear Up For Flights To Cuba

2011-11-05T22:36:00.000-07:00

This January, the White House announced new rules that loosened the Cuba travel ban to allow more academic, cultural, and religious exchanges. Under the new rules, institutions of higher learning and religious organizations can sponsor travel to Cuba, and U.S. airports can apply to provide services to licensed charters.

Since then, travel companies such as Insight Cuba, Friendly Planet Cuba, and National Geographic Expeditions have acquired licenses to operate guided trips to Cuba. Trips have a strong cultural focus and are, at least for now, still relatively pricey. But for the first time in a long time, Cuba is a legal option for curious American travelers.

That's the backdrop for major U.S. airlines expanding charter service to the island. According to a Wall Street Journal article cited in USA Today, American, Delta, JetBlue, and United-Continental will be operating about 25 weekly charter flights to Cuba by the end of the year. Charter companies estimate "about 400,000 Americans will fly to Cuba this year vs. 250,000 last year." Presumably, as more tour operators gain licenses to offer Cuba trips in 2012 and beyond, that number will continue its sharp rise.

And as demand rises, airlines and tour providers aren't the only ones looking to get in on the action. Airports in cities including New Orleans and Key West are seeking approval to offer flights to and from Cuba, so they'll be ready when airlines come looking for more departure cities from which to offer service.

Why The US Should Drop The Embargo and Prop Up Cuban Homeowners

2011-11-05T22:02:00.000-07:00

It wasn't too surprising when Cuba announced on Thursday, Nov. 3, that people on the communist island may now buy and sell private homes. They can buy two, in fact – one in the city and one in the country, perhaps for those weekends when you just need to get away from your neighborhood's Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. President Raúl Castro, who has toliberalize his moribund economy to keep it afloat, had already said Cubans could own cars and businesses; purchasing real estate wasn't that big a leap.

And yet, it is. That's because more than any of Castro's previous reforms, it opens the door to something Cuba hasn't experienced much of since the 1959 revolution: real economic development. And that stands to make Washington's 49-year-old trade embargo against Cuba look all the more futile.

Thursday's home-ownership decree ratchets up the debate about whether Castro's reforms are a nod to China's communism-cum-capitalism model, or whether, as Castro keeps insisting, they're simply a means of preserving Cuban socialism. The answer: Whatever. It's all just an ideological semantics game at this point, because what matters is that Cubans will now have one of the most valuable tickets to the formal economy: legal title to property.

Cubans, despite their universal health and education, have for the past half century been scraping by in the underground informal economy – what they call resolver, or solving the hard quotidian shortages of communist life as shrewdly (sometimes illicitly) as they can. In that regard, brain surgeons in Havana are largely in the same boat as slum squatters from Caracas to Calcutta: they've had no legal title to assets like houses that they could use either for profitable trading or for loan collateral. But as the Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto points out in his 2000 book The Mystery of Capital – still one of the best treatises on how to unlock development – formalizing property ownership can start an economic chain reaction, galvanizing more robust and widespread commerce and tax collection. “Money,” De Soto wrote, “presupposes property.”

It's safe to suppose more money will pour into Cuba now. In the past couple years, Cubans have received some $2 billion in remittances from relatives abroad, and that may well rise now that there's house-buying to be done – enough house-buying, in fact, to make a Florida real estate broker weepy nostalgic. Financing those home purchases must be done via Cuba's central bank; still, depending on new banking regulations that Castro is expected to spell out, homeowners may be able to secure credit and capital outside the central bank to improve their houses or, more important, to start or expand the private businesses that Castro hopes will absorb the up to 1 million state workers he needs to lay off. Foreign bankers and NGOs will be eager to funnel loans to a market of 11 million well educated, entrepreneurial people who live just 90 miles from Florida and remind the world of the Chinese a generation ago.

If Castro allows that – and he can't successfully wean a million Cubans off the dilapidated state economy if he doesn't make sure their enterprises are sufficiently bankrolled – the island could begin to see genuine economic opportunity emerge. Politically that can make a populace either restless or relaxed. But either way, the embargo hardliners in the U.S. can't just keep screaming that money that goes into Cuba simply props up the Castro regime and its human-rights abuses.

Like it or not, we're beyond that – just as we've been beyond it in communist China for a generation now. Property ownership promises to jumpstart the kind of economic heartbeat that an embargo, especially an ineffective unilateral trade blockade like Washington's, can't really stop. So the only question now is whether the U.S. loosens, or better yet gets rid of, the embargo so that Washington can let the kind of yanqui investment into Cuba that props up families and entrepreneurs – so that when political change does come to Cuba after the Castro regime fades away we'll have sown some goodwill and influence there – or whether it turns its back on them so it can keep indulging the regime-overthrow delusions of the embargo lobby simply because the Beltway still fears that Cuban-American votes can swing elections in Florida.

One of De Soto's more salient points is that the economy-generating effects of legal property ownership – the “institutional framework to produce wealth” – was one of the key factors in making U.S. capitalism so successful over the past two centuries. It may not lead to a Caribbean Spring in Cuba – but then, neither has five wasted decades of embargo. The bottom line is that Washington needs to conjure the common sense to engage alternatives when Castro himself provides them.

Private Sector Businesses Sprouting In Cuba

2011-08-08T16:56:00.000-07:00

They began with a hose and a few rags when Amilcar Santa Cruz and his 30 siblings and cousins set up a carwash in Havana's Miramar district, a little family business to help make ends meet.

And that's all it was for several years.

But in the last few months, the business has exploded. The carwash today is a bustling piece of new Cuban enterprise, complete with metal roofing, fluorescent lighting, a cafe and a full line of air fresheners to hang from the rearview mirror.

"Everyone here is real hardworking," Santa Cruz said. "It's all about quality."

Cuba has embarked on a far-reaching experiment to salvage its depleted and, until now, tightly regulated Marxist economy. By significantly expanding permits for Cubans to open their own businesses and hire workers, the Communist government has launched the island on its most remarkable change in years, an expansion of free enterprise that was unthinkable when Fidel Castro was in full control.

But his more pragmatic younger brother, Raul, who formally took over in 2008, has ordered a long list of reforms that include slashing the state workforce by up to 1 million people, eliminating many of the subsidies that dominated life here and, most recently, promising to ease travel off the island by Cubans.

Change, of course, comes in fits and starts. Most Cubans probably have yet to feel much in the way of new prosperity, and many among the emerging crop of fledgling entrepreneurs continue to complain of burdensome red tape and the taxes they are required to pay. With credit virtually nonexistent, most must scramble for other sources of capital, such as remittances from relatives in the United States or Europe.

Still, a walk along the seafront Malecon, or through graceful Old Havana, or in any residential neighborhood, down a street of crumbling facades or past freshly painted colonial homes reveals a buzz of activity. Hand-lettered signs have popped up, seemingly every few yards, announcing a new restaurant, hair salon or cellular telephone repair shop.

At Santa Cruz's carwash, business the other day was brisk. Customers pulled in one after another, from a boxy old white Lada to a fancy ice-blue Peugeot.

Juan Formell, the conductor of the iconic Cuban band Los Van Van, was there having his car washed, the interior swept, the tires fortified with a silicone mixture. It all costs up to 5 pesos, or roughly $5, a fortune for most Cubans but worth every cent, Formell said. (Waxing costs extra.)

"We need a lot more places like this," Formell said. "The private business pays a lot more attention to detail and is a lot more careful than the state. This is good for society and, in a few years, the economy will really take off."

Santa Cruz said his family has gradually been able to move out of the tiny house shared by so many. And last month they added the cafe, with its fresh coat of sea-green paint and Italian-style tile, where cousin Yelena Ponce was dishing out thick pork chops into little cardboard boxes for hungry customers.

"The business gives us enough to live and then to do a little more," Santa Cruz said.

Cuba's economic experiment has the potential to transform its society. The new policy creates jobs, circulates money and stirs a new mentality that values quality and competition. It will not completely remake the economy, however, because for the most part the new work involves services and not production. But it's an important beginning.

As of July 19, according to Deputy Labor Minister Carlos Mateu, more than 325,900 Cubans had taken out licenses to open, run or work at private businesses involving nearly 200 designated activities, including hairstyling, carpentry, shoemaking and dance instruction.

Another important change is that proprietors no longer have to hire only relatives; with the proper license, they can employ any Cuban.

Nowhere is the boom bigger than in restaurants. The Cuban government first permitted privately run eateries, known as paladares, from the Spanish word for "palate," in the difficult 1990s, when the nation was reeling from the collapse of the Soviet empire and the loss of its major sponsor. But the paladares operated with crippling restrictions, and only the hardiest survived.

Today you can easily find choices varying from the simplest pizza to true gourmet dining. By a rough estimate, more than 100 restaurants have opened in recent months.

Roberto Robaina, unceremoniously dumped as foreign minister in 1999, has just opened the doors on his Chaplain Cafe, where customers sit on white wrought-iron furniture and nibble salmon-stuffed cucumber rolls on black china.

"I wanted to do something different," Robaina said. Dedicated to painting after leaving government (and being expelled from the Communist Party), Robaina has decorated the restaurant in a former mansion with some of his artworks.

One of the waiters, a young Brad Pitt look-alike named Carlos, said he had been laid off from a job at a state-run cafeteria as part of the government's effort to trim its payroll, but he quickly found new employment. "There's a lot of competition now," said Carlos, 21, with gelled blond-tipped curls.

Bom Apetite is a restaurant that has been around since the '90s but is now expanding in leaps and bounds to accommodate a growing clientele, said manager Adrian Riera. The menu includes items once prohibited, such as shrimp and lobster, he said, and they are adding on a bar with capacity for 40 people that will serve wine and tapas until 3 a.m.

"We are now something really professional," Riera said, pausing from a meeting with the president of the Cuban Sommeliers Assn. (yes, there is such a thing). "Private businesses are no longer just a family matter. We are moving into another category."

Willians Vivanco, a 30-year-old computer programmer, has taken advantage of the boom and also taken a gamble that Internet access is inevitably going to grow on the island, where government censorship keeps Internet penetration among the lowest in the world.

Vivanco and a group of friends in May launched a website dedicated to the restaurant scene, sort of a Cuban opentable.com (which he said was an inspiration). They will profile a restaurant for free but charge if the establishment wants extra information or a photo gallery posted. So far alamesacuba.com ("to the Cuban table") lists nearly 70 restaurants. This may sound elementary to the technologically savvy world, but in Cuba it's a first.

As soon as Raul Castro announced the economic reforms, "we started looking for ways to earn money," said Vivanco, who has never traveled off the island and rarely eats out. "We didn't have the money to start a cafe, and we're not going to start driving taxis. But we knew computers."

Vivanco wants his main audience to be Cubans, though the majority have no computer access and probably can't afford many of the restaurants. He has started an email newsletter about restaurants and bargains in hope of widening exposure. There are about 300 subscribers to the newsletter (half Cuban), and the website averages 250 daily visits. So far, he figures, he's earned about $22.

When Cuba's economy finally takes off, he said, "the key is to be prepared."

There is possibly more change on the horizon.

The Castro government has said it plans by the end of the year to begin allowing Cubans to buy and sell residential real estate. In keeping with one of the pillars of the revolution, Cubans have been allowed only to swap property in an informal street-corner transaction called a permuta, and no money can change hands. The goal was to prevent fat-cat speculation by absentee landlords who fled to Miami, and the result has been a critical housing shortage.

Under the new rules, Cubans on the island and permanent residents will be permitted to own homes, though no more than one per individual; both sellers and buyers will pay taxes.

Raul Castro, whose economic program was endorsed in June by the Cabinet, has indicated that he has been encouraged by initial results, including 1.9% growth in the gross domestic product for the first six months of the year.

"We must continue to gradually recover international credibility for our economy," Castro said in a speech this month. "The biggest obstacle that we face … is the psychological barrier formed by inertia, indifference and insensitivity.... Without changing our mentality, we will not be able to carry out the changes necessary to sustain [Cuba's] irrevocable socialist character."

Cuba's Young Bloggers Speak Loudly For Their Generation

2011-04-26T13:46:00.000-07:00

Cuban blogger Claudia Cadelo will not tell you about her Web posting habits, at least not via phone or email. And, even though she is someone who writes and tweets regularly, the way she gets online is a closely guarded secret.

That’s because Cadelo–better known by the title of her blog, Octavo Cerco–is one of the best-known members of the Cuban blogging community.

Made of up just a handful of writers–a tightly networked community of Cuban “blogeras”–they walk the fine line of being public figures, while also knowing that their every post is monitored by a watchful government.

Still, calling herself the “Queen of Incredulity,” she writes with a candor that no visitor to Cuba should expect to hear in any but the most private places, airing grievances to her online audience with no hesitation.

“Having access to free information is a human right,” Cadelo said in a phone interview recently. “I, personally, want to be heard, and I want the right to know what is going on outside of the borders of this island.”

Of course, that’s no easy thing in Cuba, one of the most closed countries in the world, where typical Internet blogging free-for-alls are not tolerated.

Which is why Cadelo writes that her country denies its citizens access to mass media, while offering low Internet connectivity, with “arbitrary laws against freedom of expression and with the impunity to defame, distort, lie and lay waste on national television to those who think differently.”

And while President Raul Castro started allowing Cuban citizens to use the Internet offered to guests in hotels in 2008, Cadelo was quick to point out that the average cost of such services is $10.00 per hour.

That makes one hour of Web access cost between one and two weeks of work under the average Cuban wage.

Cadelo, who was born in 1983, had a comfortable upbringing in Cuba, rife with Communist indoctrination, until the collapse of the Soviet Union when she was six years old, which resulted in a severe economic crisis in Cuba and increased repression by the government.

“By 13, I already knew what I could and could not say,” she said in an essay detailing her background. “By 18, I was completely disillusioned with the system and couldn’t even really pretend to myself any more, although I was careful not to externalize it.”

It all started for her three years ago, when the lead singer of Cuban punk rock band Porno para Ricardo, a group known for its anti-establishment message, was arrested on the charge of “pre-criminal dangerousness.” That translates to the potential that one might commit a crime.

Cadelo went into action, along with several friends, and began a campaign to have the singer, Gorki Aguila, released.

“For a novice in the uses of freedom of expression it had everything: Beatings, a police operation and arrests,” she wrote of the experience.

Following Aguila’s eventual release, Cadelo’s disillusionment and activism continued to grow, and her career as a blogger was nurtured by another long-time Cuban voice of dissent, Yoani Sanchez. Cadelo began writing that same year, and now has thousands of followers and readers.

Her involvement with Porno para Ricardo continues as well: she is married to Ciro Díaz, the band’s lead guitarist.

While Cadelo writes on contemporary events in Cuba, much of her musings consist of her feelings on daily life in a country she hopes to someday leave. Although she would not speak at length about her political opinions and feelings on what was almost certainly a monitored phone conversation, she has no qualms about broadcasting them to the world on her blog.

“I get up in the morning and get my bath of unreality watching the morning news on TV,” she began a recent post. In fact, arguing with the television was a method of the teenaged Cadelo’s for venting her dissatisfaction with the government, years before having access to an online platform.

But vent she does.

“It’s a fact: This island is governed by madmen,” she wrote in reference to the country’s effective shutdown to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs. “We Cubans say we are paranoid, and, honestly, if we weren’t we’d be really sick, because there is nothing more chilling than to stand on the balcony and see a squad of soldiers screaming obscenities and stomping the ground.”

Feelings of frustration and hopelessness are central themes in her writing. Even the title of her blog, translated to “Eighth Circle,” refers to a poem by a Polish dissident who likens living in a satellite country of Soviet Russia to being in one of the deepest parts of hell.

At times, Cadelo, who seems to be speaking for her generation, clearly feels the same way about Cuba. Although her writing is often informative, she frequently waxes poetic.

“Havana has been asleep since I was born. I like to stand at the end of Calle 12 and look at the line the sea draws in the distance,” Cadelo wrote in March. “Almost all my friends live, or intend to live, on the other side of that line. Where my eyes cannot go.”

(While many blogeras do not know enough of English or any other foreign language to write in them, there are resources to ensure that their work is translated to reach a much wider audience. Hemos Oido, meaning “We Have Heard,” is an online initiative to translate Cuban blogs into English, French, German, Danish and others, and is the means by which Octavo Cerco reaches as many readers as it does. You can visit the English version of Cadelo’s blog here.)

Raul Castro Proposes Term Limits In Sign Of New Era

2011-04-16T20:34:00.000-07:00

HAVANA — For 52 years the Castro brothers have ruled Cuba. But if President Raúl Castro has his way, he may be out of the job as soon as 2013 and definitely by 2018, when he is 86.

Mr. Castro, in a speech on Saturday heralding a battery of changes intended to lift the island out of economic despair and stagnant thinking, proposed that politicians be limited to two five-year terms in an effort to rejuvenate a political system dominated by aging loyalists of the revolution. At the top are himself and Fidel Castro, 84, who permanently gave up presidential power in 2008 and last month announced that he was no longer head of the Communist Party, either.

But President Castro made even more explicit what most Cubans discuss only behind closed doors and the rest of the world has taken for granted: The Castro era is nearing its end.

“We have arrived at the conclusion that it is advisable to limit the fundamental political and state offices to a maximum period of two consecutive periods of five years,” Mr. Castro said in a speech opening the Sixth Communist Party Congress, the first such gathering since 1997. He said his generation had failed to prepare a new crop of younger leaders, and called for a “systematic rejuvenation of the whole chain of party and administrative posts.”

Mr. Castro’s declarations may intensify the intrigue surrounding his official ascencion to the party’s top spot, from the second-highest position, and the question of who will be designated the new No. 2, a possible successor.

His proposal to curtail terms came on a day that swung between embracing the past and grasping for the future.

In the morning, Cuba looked back, with fighter jets, gleaming olive-colored tanks and hundreds of thousands of marchers chanting in fervor over the failed invasion by Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs 50 years ago, still a celebrated triumph here.

In the afternoon, President Castro looked ahead, swearing allegiance to socialism while bowing to the cold realities of this country’s crippled economy. He called for the elimination of monthly ration books that most Cubans use to buy goods, and for continued expansion of private enterprise. He cajoled his compatriots to shake off inertia and embrace an “updating” of the Cuban model.

“No country or person can spend more than they have,” Mr. Castro told 1,000 delegates gathered for the party congress, which is expected to yield broad changes in the Cuban system before it concludes on Tuesday. “Two plus two is four. Never five, much less six or seven, as we have sometimes pretended.”

Speaking for more than two hours — and for more than an hour after he declared, “Everything about the revolution has been said” — Mr. Castro gave assurances that socialism would prevail and promised Cubans continued free access to health care and education. But he said government handouts like the ration books were an “unsupportable load on the economy” that discouraged people from working.

He praised the expanded opportunities already extended to entrepreneurs; the government has granted 180,000 licenses for small businesses like coffee vendors, fast-food stands and house rentals, with tens of thousands more expected to be issued in the coming months. Yet he appeared to reject as “contrary to socialism” the loosening of rules on buying and selling homes, a change some analysts had speculated was coming.

The Cuban economy is sinking, racked by the lingering effects of the global recession of 2008, a free fall in the sugar market and, the government argues, the United States’ economic embargo.

Mr. Castro’s proposals may be the most significant changes here since businesses were nationalized in 1968, though it is clear that he and his aides are struggling to set a course that will not be seen as a failure of socialism.

Mr. Castro already warned that the state could no longer afford to keep four-fifths of the work force on its payrolls, but this month indefinitely delayed the layoffs of 500,000 state workers announced last year.

In many ways, the morning demonstration was typical of most government-organized mass marches here. In the early morning, buses from across the country disgorged workers waving Cuban flags, sporting T-shirts bearing the image of Che Guevara and other icons, carrying placards and banners, and dancing to pounding, patriotic salsa rhythms.

They marched along the Malecón seaside drive, then to Revolution Plaza, where President Castro and other dignitaries beamed at the show of force “to fight whatever imperialist aggression,” as the announcer put it.

The failure of Cuban exiles, trained and assisted by the C.I.A., to topple Fidel Castro’s government still ranks here as an important triumph over the United States, all these years later.

The crowd shouted: “Long live Fidel! Long live Raúl! Long live our Communist Party!” Still, there was some anxiety.

“Really, we do not know what is coming next,” said Armando, a teacher making his way to the parade who, like many others still fearful of speaking their minds here, would give only his first name. “It is worrying, but look around you. Nothing changes here, and that is the problem. We are like a living museum here.”

A few handmade placards seemed to nod to the future.

“Efficiency,” said one, “and victory.”

Pre-Order Yoani's New Book Now

2011-04-06T11:22:00.000-07:00

Havana Real
One Woman Fights to Tell the Truth About Cuba Today

Pre-order here

Yoani Sanchez On Her Meeting With Jimmy Carter in Havana

2011-04-06T11:13:00.000-07:00

He was the first American president I shouted a slogan at.

I don't remember the precise words of the insult as almost thirty years have passed. However, I can remember the feeling of my clenched fists, my red and white uniform trembling with each scream that I launched at Jimmy Carter who -- according to my kindergarten teacher -- would destroy the island, the palms, the classroom desks, happiness.

And three decades later, here I am in Havana, talking with him and other familiar faces from our nascent civil society. I barely resemble that Little Pioneer buried in the hysteria of political slogans and this man I am speaking with doesn't fit the role of the leader who was the target of my insults. Now he is a mediator, a man who doesn't seem interested in wiping Cuba off the map, as they once assured me in primary school. So the girl who was supposed to be the "New Man" and the former commander of the armed of the forces of the United States, have met at a moment in their lives in which neither has the same position as before, in which the path of both has taken the direction of dialog; although once we could have killed each other, across some battle field.

I see him speak and wonder if he knows that I was trained to hate him. Will he be the villain of my childhood stories, the face of grotesque caricatures in the official newspapers, the man whom government propaganda blamed for all our ills? Of course he knows, and still he extends his hand to me, speaks to me, asks me a question. And so he, who was "the enemy," offers me his kind words.

Outside the Hotel Santa Isabel where we have met, in some school in the area, another little girl repeats her slogans, squeezes her hands, shouts, focuses her mind on the face of a man whom she says she detests. Fortunately, she too will forget the words she screams at this moment, erase from her mind the slogans full of resentment they make her chant today.

P.S. I am attaching a message, accompanied by a gift, that we gave Mr. Jimmy Carter in the name of several bloggers and other Cubans.

Havana March 30, 2011

Mr. Jimmy Carter:

On behalf of several alternative bloggers and other members of Cuban civil society, we would like to give you this present. This is a small sample of the food that the self-employed are able to make from maní, the word Cubans use for peanuts, that dried fruit that you know so well.
For over half a century the maní has been one of the few products that has escaped the control of State planning. Even in the hardest days of the so-called Special Period one of the the few things we could buy on the free market produced by independent people were these cones and peanut butters that we offer to you today. There were times when the traditional cry of "peanuts, the peanut seller is here..." had to go practically underground, becoming a phrase whispered into the ears of clients.

This popular "criminal" food, within the reach of every pocket, has become the symbol of public resistance before totalitarian pretensions, a stronghold of creativity and ingenuity in the face of centralism and control. Here is the maní, the conqueror of difficulties, stubborn disobedient, transformed now into a symbol of union, a meeting point between your people and ours.

------------------------
Written by Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y and Translating Cuba

Cuba To Deepwater Drill For Oil by 2013

2011-04-05T17:38:00.000-07:00

Cuba on Tuesday announced plans to drill five deepwater oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico beginning this summer, expressing confidence that its efforts will be rewarded with major new energy finds.

"We're about to move to the drilling phase," said Manuel Marrero, an official with the government authority tasked with overseeing Cuba's oil sector.

"We're all really hopeful that we will be able to discover large reserves of oil and gas," said Marrero, who added that the ventures would be undertaken with the help of unspecified foreign companies.

He said the deepwater wells were to be drilled between 2011 and 2013, and would be in waters ranging in depth between 400 meters (a quarter mile) and 1,500 meters (1.6 miles). He did not specify which countries would be among the foreign partners working with Havana on the project.

Some studies estimate Cuba has probable reserves of between five and nine billion barrels of oil in its economic zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Cuban authorities have said their crude reserves are as high as 20 billion barrels. In 2010, Cuba produced 21 million barrels of oil, about the same as it had extracted the previous year, representing a little less than half of its annual energy needs. Cuba depends on Venezuela for the rest of its oil imports of about 100,000 barrels per day. Any cut to Venezuelan supplies could spell political and economic disaster for Havana.

Locking in energy independence, aside from potentially turning Cuba from a cash-strapped developing nation into a flush oil exporter, could help project its current regime years into the future. On Monday, Rafael Tenrreyro, the head of state oil form Cupet's exploration branch, said Cuba was anxiously awaiting a platform made in China for one of its offshore efforts.

Cuba's economic zone in the Gulf, just a stone's throw from the US state of Florida, is divided into 59 blocs. Of those 20 are ventures with Repsol (Spain), Hydro (Norway), OVL (India), PDVSA (Venezuela), Petrovietnam and Petronas (Malaysia). Petrobras (Brazil) recently pulled out and Sonangol (Angola) recently signed on.

Will Cuba Be The Next Egypt?

2011-02-07T11:41:00.000-08:00

Developments in Egypt over the last two weeks brought Cuba to my mind. Why does a similar rebellion against five decades of repression there still appear to be a far-off dream? Part of the answer is in the relationship between the Castro brothers—Fidel and Raúl—and the generals. The rest is explained by the regime's significantly more repressive model. In the art of dictatorship, Hosni Mubarak is a piker.

That so many Egyptians have raised their voices in Tahrir Square is a testament to the universal human yearning for liberty. But it is a mistake to ignore the pivotal role of the military. I'd wager that when the history of the uprising is written, we will learn that Egypt's top brass did not approve of the old man's succession plan to anoint his son in the next election.

Castro has bought loyalty from the secret police and military by giving them control of the three most profitable sectors of the economy—retail, travel and services. Hundreds of millions of dollars flow to them every year. If the system collapses, so does that income. Of course the Egyptian military also owns businesses. But it doesn't depend on a purely state-owned economy. And as a recipient of significant U.S. aid and training for many years, the Egyptian military has cultivated a culture of professionalism and commitment to the nation over any single individual.

The most striking difference between Cuba and Egypt is access to the Internet. In a March 2009 Freedom House report on Internet and digital media censorship world-wide, Egypt scored a 45 (out of 100), slightly worse than Turkey but better than Russia. Cuba scored a 90, making it more Net-censored than even Iran, China and Tunisia. Cellphone service is too expensive for most Cubans.In Cuba there are no opposition political parties or nonstate media; rapid response brigades enforce the party line. Travel outside the country is not allowed without state approval. If peaceful dissidents with leadership skills can't be broken, they are eventually exiled. Or they are murdered.

Yet technology does somehow seep into Cuba. When Fidel took the life of prisoner of conscience Pedro Boitel in 1972 by denying him water during a hunger strike, the world hardly noticed. By contrast, news of the regime's 2010 murder of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo hit the Internet almost immediately and was met with worldwide condemnation. The military dictatorship was helpless to contain the bad publicity.

In a similar fashion, when the Ladies in White—a group of wives, sisters and mothers of political prisoners—walking peacefully in Havana were roughed up by state security last year, the images were captured on cellphones and immediately showed up on the Web. It was more bad PR for the Castro brothers and their friends like Mexican President Felipe Calderón and Spanish President José Luis Zapatero.

Technology-induced international pressure is making the regime increasingly reluctant to flatten critics the old-fashioned way. In an interview in Argentina's Ambito Financiero on Jan. 27, internationally recognized Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez said the "style" of state repression has shifted from aggressive arrests and long sentences to targeted attempts at defamation and isolation. Ms. Sanchez also said that uniformed police are "distancing themselves from the political theme, not by orders from above, but because they no longer want to be associated with the repression." Now, she said, the intimidation and arbitrary arrests are largely carried out by the secret police in civilian clothes.

Last week a leaked video of a Cuban military seminar on how to combat technology hit the Internet. It demonstrates the dictatorship's preoccupation with the Web. The lecturer warns about the dangers of young people with an appealing discourse sharing information through technology and trying to organize. Real-time chat, Twitter and the emergence of young leaders in cyberspace—aka "a permanent battlefield"—are perils outlined in the hour-long talk. The lecturer also shares his concerns about U.S. government programs that try to increase Internet access outside of officialdom on the island.A little more space has emboldened the population. Ms. Sánchez also said in the interview that she is "optimistic about the slow and irreversible process of interior change in Cubans. In that the citizen critic will grow, will have less fear, and will feel that the mask is increasingly unnecessary and that it doesn't any longer translate into privileges and subsidies."

On Friday, the regime further displayed its paranoia by charging U.S. Agency for International Development contractor Alan Gross with spying. Mr. Gross has been in jail for 14 months for giving Cuban Jews computer equipment so they could connect with the diaspora.

With very limited access, Cubans are already using the Internet to share what has until now been kept in their heads: counterrevolutionary thoughts. If those go viral, even a well-fed military will not be able to save the regime. But for now, Cubans can only dream about the freedoms Egyptians enjoy as they voice their grievances.

Cuba Tourism Rising Despite Travel Ban

2011-01-24T15:26:00.000-08:00

Even with a travel blockade by the United States government to visit, Cuba reported an increase of 4.2 percent in foreign travelers in 2010 with 2.5 million people making their way to the communist nation.

Travel to Cuba for educational, religious and cultural reasons is expected to be broadened by President Obama, the Miami Herald reported last wee.

In addition, the president is expected to restore the $2,000 limit that can be sent to non-relatives on the Caribbean island ruled by the Fidel Castro regime.

Tampa Democrat Rep. Kathy Castor hailed the news, the Herald said, and suggested Cuban Americans in her community would soon be able to travel directly from Tampa to Cuba if the airport secures authorization.

"The Tampa Bay region has one of the highest Cuban-American populations in this country, but for too long, families have had to travel to Miami in order to get to Cuba,'' said Castor, who sent a letter to Obama before he took office, "requesting a fresh look at U.S.-Cuban relations and lifting travel restrictions for families.''

Cuba Gets Wired

2011-01-24T15:22:00.000-08:00

One of the world's most unplugged countries is about to get high-speed Internet, courtesy of an old friend.

A specialized ship began laying fiber-optic cable under the Caribbean Sea from Venezuela toward Cuba this past weekend, launching a $70 million project to connect the communist island nation with better phone and Internet service. Internet access in Cuba currently has to go through satellites to get around U.S. embargo restrictions, which ends up being costly and slow.

The new fiber-optic cable is being laid by a French-flagged ship from the company Alcatel-Lucent, and paid for jointly by the Venezuelan and Cuban state telecommunications companies. The cable is expected to stretch 1,000 miles underwater and hook up to Cuba next month, with computers going online there -- at a connection speed 3,000 times faster than before -- sometime this summer.

In addition, a 150-mile extension of the cable will eventually connect Cuba to nearby Jamaica, the Havana Times reported.

Officials from Cuba and its most prominent ally, Venezuela, touted the fiber-optic project as a slap in the face to America's embargo on Cuba, which has largely kept the tiny communist island out of the broadband era, prohibiting any U.S. tech companies from doing business in Cuba.

"This means a giant step for the independence and sovereignty of our people," Rogelio Polanco, Cuba's ambassador to Caracas, said at a festive ceremony to mark the ship's departure from a Venezuelan port, The Guardian reported. The pomp-filled ceremony was broadcast on Venezuelan TV, showing two divers attaching the cable to the seabed to the applause of mostly Cuban and Venezuelan diplomats.

Venezuela's government minister for science and technology, Ricardo Menendez, could be heard shouting, "Venezuela's breaking the embargo!" the BBC reported.

Cuba currently has roughly one phone line for every 11 citizens, and less than 5 percent of Cubans have mobile phones, according to the CIA World Factbook. About one in 10 Cubans uses the Internet -- one of the Western Hemisphere's lowest ratios.

That could change with the new fiber-optic cable, but it depends on how much Cuba loosens its tight censorship of the media. The communist daily newspaper Granma appeared to dash hopes for free media in Cuba in an article earlier this month, when it stated that broadband Internet would give Cubans higher-quality communication but not necessarily "broader" access to information.

US Significantly Eases Cuba Travel Restrictions

2011-01-14T15:33:00.000-08:00

The White House on Friday eased travel restrictions to Cuba and expanded payments to the country as part of an effort to allow U.S. citizens and institutions to engage directly with Cuba.

President Barack Obama has ordered changes in U.S. policy that would allow religious groups to travel to the country and increase journalistic activities on the island. Other changes include the ability for U.S. citizens to send as much as $2,000 per year in remittances to non-family members in order to support private economic activity.

The new measures also allow educational institutions to sponsor travel to the island.

These "are important steps in reaching the widely shared goal of a Cuba that respects the basic rights of all its citizens," the White House said in a press release. The directives build on earlier moves by the Obama administration designed to increase the flow of people and goods between the U.S. and Cuba.

The measures announced Friday also allow all U.S. international airports to apply to provide services to licensed charters flying to Cuba.

The policies comes after the island's aging dictator, Fidel Castro, transferred power to his brother, Raul Castro.

Cuba Broke In Two to Three Years?

2010-12-10T15:18:00.001-08:00

HAVANA – A newly released confidential U.S. diplomatic cable predicted Cuba's economic situation could become "fatal" within two to three years, and detailed concerns from other countries' diplomats — including China — that the communist-run country has been slow to adopt reforms.

The cable was written in February, months before Cuban PresidentRaul Castro announced a major revamp of the island's economy, laying out plans to fire a half-million state workers and open up the island to expanded forms of private enterprise.

The cable, sent by the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, which Washington maintains instead of an embassy, was released Friday by WikiLeaks. It was apparently written by America's chief diplomat on the island, Jonathan Farrar.

There was no immediate reaction from the Cuban government, but the cable's release is not likely to help improve U.S.-Cuban relations already strained by the long detention of an American contractor on suspicion of spying — not to mention 50 years of Cold War animus.

It details a breakfast meeting held by the Interests Section's chief economic officer with diplomats from some of Cuba's main trading partners, including China, Spain, Canada, Brazil and Italy, as well as France and Japan, both of which are among the island's top creditors.

"All diplomats agreed that Cuba could survive this year without substantial policy changes, but the financial situation could become fatal within 2-3 years," the cable said, adding that Italian diplomats cited sources within the Cuban government as predicting that the island "would become insolvent as early as 2011."

Even the Chinese diplomat expressed what the cable referred to as "visible exasperation." It said the Chinese were particularly annoyed by Cuba's insistence on retaining majority control of any joint venture.

"No matter whether a foreign business invests $10 million or $100 million, the GOC's (Government of Cuba's) investment will always add up to 51%," the cable quoted the unidentified Chinese commercial counselor as saying.

The Chinese also complained about problems getting loans repaid, and in particular a Cuban request to extend from one year to four years the amount of time it has to repay credit.

It is no secret that Cuba's financial situation is increasingly dire. Raul Castro has warned that the state can no longer afford to subsidize nearly all forms of Cuban life. The government provides free health care andeducation, and nearly free transportation, housing and utilities. All Cubans also receive a ration book that provides them with some basic food, though not enough to live on.

Most islanders work for just $20 a month in a state-dominated economic system riddled with inefficiency.

Yet the country has survived the collapse of the Soviet Union, which caused the near-failure of its economy, as well as a 48-year U.S. trade embargo, the retirement of revolutionary leader Fidel Castro in 2006 and countless other bumps along the way.

And the cable's confidence that the government would not enact economic reforms did not pan out. The reforms announced by Raul Castro in September are considered the most significant in a generation. Still, it is unclear if they will be enough to save the island's perennially weak economy.

The cable said Cuba's attempts at agricultural and other reform up to that point had been ineffective, and said more changes were unlikely. It said the country seemed determined to give the more control over state-run businesses to the military, and particularly Agriculture Minister Ulises Rosales del Toro, whom the cable described as Raul Castro's most trusted general.

The cable said the situation would worsen dramatically should there be economic or political problems involving Cuba's top ally, Venezuela, which the dispatch said was "increasingly unstable." It quoted the French diplomat at the meeting as saying Hugo Chavez's country "is in flames" and "a source of serious concern for Cuba."

Cuba receives billions of dollars worth of oil a year from Venezuela at greatly subsidized prices in exchange for the services of Cuban doctors and other help.

"There is little prospect of economic reform in 2010 despite an economic crisis that is expected to get even worse for Cuba in the next few years," the cable said, citing Cuba experts. It closed with a scathing criticism of the leadership of a government ruled by aging brothers Fidel and Raul Castro since they overthrew dictatorFulgencio Batista in 1959.

The government's "direction and leadership remains muddled and unclear, in great measure because its leaders are paralyzed by fear that reforms will loosen the tight grip on power that they have held for over 50 years," it said.

In Havana, Jam Sessions With a Master Trumpeter

2010-10-10T20:30:00.000-07:00

HAVANA — Wynton Marsalis pulled a young Cuban trumpeter aside as he left the Mella Theater here on Wednesday after a Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra concert. The band was here for a residency that ended over the weekend, and Mr. Marsalis had seen 17-year-old Kalí Rodríguez play a few nights earlier at an official reception for the American musicians.

“He told me, ‘You have something special,’ ” recalled Mr. Rodríguez, who has been studying music for seven years at the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory in Havana.

Mr. Marsalis led Mr. Rodríguez to the empty theater and gave him a late-night lesson, playing blues on the piano while Mr. Rodríguez played his trumpet. The master trumpeter gave his pupil tips on musical phrasing and some encouragement as well, Mr. Rodríguez said.

“He told me, ‘You’re serious about what you do, and I like what you do,’ ” added Mr. Rodríguez, who said he was so overwhelmed by Mr. Marsalis’s attention that he broke down in tears midway through the class. “I felt like my soul was bursting out of my body. I mean, if Wynton Marsalis says you’re good at the trumpet, then that’s a big deal.”

Not everyone, though, was awed by the famous American players who descended on Havana for a whirlwind series of encounters that took them from dark rumba joints to the scruffy, vibrant conservatories where Cuba’s young talent is schooled. Dayrón Rodríguez, no relation to the trumpeter, a 12-year-old bongo fiend, didn’t flinch when he was invited to jam onstage with the Lincoln Center band and 13 other Cuban musicians for the rousing Saturday finale of the group’s residency. Mr. Rodríguez, the trumpeter, also played in the concert.

“It’s not the first time I’ve played with great musicians,” said Dayrón, who noted that he had sat in with Yaroldy Abreu Robles, a family friend and percussionist forChucho Valdés’s Afro-Cuban Messengers.

A grinning Dayrón skipped onto the stage on Saturday night. Along with his bongos he brought a copy of a CD on which he had played, flashing it to band members whenever he got the chance.

The Lincoln Center players came to spread the word of American jazz to Cuban music lovers, and they found an eager audience. Cuban musicians are hungry for all the information they can get. Relatively few foreign bands visit Cuba, and the island’s Internet reach is low. (In a recent government survey less than 3 percent of Cubans said they had been online in the past year.)

Several of the teenage students who jammed with the Lincoln Center players last week said they had never used the Internet and did not have access to a computer or own an MP3 player. They relied on people who traveled overseas to share music with them, they said.

Many members of the Lincoln Center group said they were impressed by the young musicians who performed at workshops, sat in on rehearsals and filled the hotel lobby at night to pepper them with questions. “I love their talent, their attitude, their seriousness and their culture,” said Carlos Henriquez, the Lincoln Center bass player. “Their dedication is unbelievable. We don’t get that in the States.”

There was much talk of bridges last week: the one between Cuba and the United States, and the one between Afro-Cuban music and American jazz.

Jazz at Lincoln Center came trundling over that bridge on Oct. 2 to jam with Cuban stars and teenage students, to give a workshop for children and to perform four concerts with a lineup of Cuban players that included Chucho Valdés; Eliade Terry, known as Don Pancho, the country’s foremost chekeré player; Bobby Carcassés; and Orlando Valle, known as Maraca.

“The bridge was built when Chano Pozo and Dizzy started doing their thing — even before that,” said Mr. Henriquez, referring to the historic collaboration in the late 1940s between that Cuban percussionist and Dizzy Gillespie. “What we’ve done this week is repave the bridge.”

This was possible partly because American officials are interpreting travel restrictions less rigidly under President Obama than they did under George W. Bush. They are letting more Cuban artists visit America, and vice versa.

Now that the bridge is in use again, the musicians wondered how to keep the traffic flowing. Mr. Valdés, the veteran pianist and co-artistic director of the residency, said the next step would be to get American musicians to come to Havana’s jazz festival in December. The festival has flagged in recent years, as it became difficult for the Americans to attend after President Bush tightened travel restrictions in 2003.

“Let anyone come who wants to come,” Mr. Valdés said during a rehearsal break last week. “I would open the door really wide.”

Mr. Valdés also wants to see more Cubans and Americans participating in exchange programs. “Imagine if we could get Americans coming here to study Afro-Cuban rhythms, coming and going without any kind of problem, without politics getting in the way,” he said. “That would be my dream.”

For about 200 years Afro-Cuban rhythms nourished the American music from which jazz emerged, as commerce and people flowed freely between Havana and New Orleans. But that rich trade was essentially shut down when the United States severed diplomatic and commercial ties with Cuba and its Communist leader, Fidel Castro, in the early 1960s.

The two cities may be cut off from each other, but the spirit of New Orleans was present in Havana during the Lincoln Center residency. “I see many things here that are exactly like New Orleans: the architecture, the feeling of the people, the climate, the community,” said Mr. Marsalis, a native of New Orleans.

He pointed to the shared African roots of the roll call, in which New Orleans musicians call the names of deceased players, and the Yoruba blessing sung in Cuban rumba; and to the influence the Cuban habanera rhythm had on ragtime. “Cuban music is in the roots of our music. This is an opportunity to reconnect, to deepen our communality” he said.

So it was fitting that the penultimate event of the residency should include a New Orleans-style parade. On Saturday the players treated 1,500 music students from five schools around Havana to a workshop at the Mella Theater, dissecting the “three pillars” of jazz — swing, blues and improvisation — and bringing students onstage to play with them.

At the end the audience danced and clapped as the Americans played blues and paraded through the auditorium, trailing a line of Cuban trumpeters, violinists, clarinetists and saxophonists.

And then the band marched out of the theater, through the stage door and into the warm Havana afternoon, still tooting their horns, dancers twirling handkerchiefs behind them. A crowd waved and cheered as the musicians headed to their bus.

Then the sound of brass trailed off, and the players were gone.

Freedom of Travel Finally A Reality for Americans?

2010-08-17T09:13:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is planning to expand opportunities for Americans to travel to Cuba, the latest step aimed at encouraging more contact between people in both countries, while leaving intact the decades-old embargo against the island’s Communist government, according to Congressional and administration officials.

The officials, who asked not to be identified because they had not been authorized to discuss the policy before it was announced, said it was meant to loosen restrictions on academic, religious and cultural groups that were adopted under President George W. Bush, and return to the “people to people” policies followed under President Bill Clinton.

Those policies, officials said, fostered robust exchanges between the United States and Cuba, allowing groups — including universities, sports teams, museums and chambers of commerce — to share expertise as well as life experiences.

Policy analysts said the intended changes would mark a significant shift in Cuba policy. In early 2009, President Obama lifted restrictions on travel and remittances only for Americans with relatives on the island.

Congressional aides cautioned that some administration officials still saw the proposals as too politically volatile to announce until after the coming midterm elections, and they said revisions could still be made.

But others said the policy, which does not need legislative approval, would be announced before Congress returned from its break in mid-September, partly to avoid a political backlash from outspoken groups within the Cuban American lobby — backed by Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey — that oppose any softening in Washington’s position toward Havana.

Those favoring the change said that with a growing number of polls showing that Cuban-Americans’ attitudes toward Cuba had softened as well, the administration did not expect much of a backlash.

“They have made the calculation that if you put a smarter Cuba policy on the table, it will not harm us in the election cycle,” said one Democratic Congressional aide who has been working with the administration on the policy. “That, I think, is what animates this.”

Mr. Menendez, in a statement, objected to the anticipated changes. “This is not the time to ease pressure on the Castro regime,” he said, referring to PresidentRaúl Castro of Cuba, who took office in 2006 after his brother, Fidel, fell ill. Mr. Menendez added that promoting travel would give Havana a “much needed infusion of dollars that will only allow the Castro brothers to extend their reign of oppression.”

In effect, the new policy would expand current channels for travel to Cuba, rather than create new ones. Academic, religious and cultural groups are now allowed to travel under very tight rules. For example, students wanting to study in Cuba are required to stay at least 10 weeks. And only accredited universities can apply for academic visas.

Under the new policy, such restrictions would be eased, officials said. And academic institutions, including research and advocacy groups and museums, would be able to seek licenses for as long as two years.

In addition, the administration is also planning to allow flights to Cuba from more cities than the three — Miami, New York and Los Angeles — currently permitted. And there are proposals, the officials said, to allow all Americans to send remittances or charitable donations to churches, schools and human rights groups in Cuba.

Some analysts said the measures were partly a response to pressure from an unlikely alliance of liberal political groups and conservative business associations — led by Senator John Kerry, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — who have been pushing Congress to lift all restrictions on travel to Cuba.

Others described it as a nod to President Castro’s stunning decision last month to begin releasing dozens of political prisoners.

“It’s a way of fostering greater opening and exchange without a bruising battle with a much-needed political ally in an election year,” said Christopher Sabatini, senior policy director at the Council of the Americas. “But it can still be legitimately couched as a way of supporting democracy and human rights by allowing independent exchange and thought.”

As with everything concerning Cuba, the new policy seems fraught with complications. President Obama, who came to office promising to open new channels of engagement with Cuba, has so far had limited those new openings to Cuban-Americans, partly because of political concerns, and also because his administration’s attention had been focused on more pressing foreign policy matters, including two wars.

“I don’t think the administration believes this will produce palpable change in the short term,” said Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations. “But it’s a way over the long term to allow Americans and Cubans to have contact, even as their governments continue to hash out a lot of seriously thorny issues.”

High on the United States’ list of issues is winning the release of an American contractor who was detained in Cuba nine months ago when the authorities said they caught him distributing satellite telephones to Jewish dissidents. The contractor, Alan P. Gross, had gone to Cuba without the proper visa as part of longstanding program by the organization Usaid, in which development workers conduct activities aimed at strengthening groups that oppose the Castro government.

“We’re dealing with a relationship that’s so contorted, it would take another 50 years of incremental steps to pull it apart and reassemble it in a constructive way,” said Robert Pastor, a professor of international relations at American University. “Even then, we’re having trouble taking baby steps, when what we need is a giant leap.”

Artists See Increase in US-Cuba Arts Exchanges

2010-07-24T23:00:00.000-07:00

HAVANA — The venue is undistinguished: a cramped theater tucked beneath a downtown apartment block. Tickets cost just five Cuban pesos, or 23 cents. The set, for want of wood, is a beautiful creation of string.

Yet in the world of Cuban theater, the production of “Blind Mouth Singing” — written and directed by Cuban-Americans — is a rare and momentous event. Only a handful of artists from the Cuban diaspora have staged plays here on the island since the United States severed ties with Cuba in 1961.

“It’s difficult to overstate the emotional impact it’s had on me and the symbolic importance it has for relations between Miami and Havana,” said the playwright, Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas, who was in the Cuban capital for the opening at the 182-seat Basement Theater this month.

Despite little apparent progress in diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States since President Obama took office, members of the Cuban arts community say more musicians, artists, actors and writers are traveling between the two countries than during George W. Bush’s presidency.

In June, Silvio Rodríguez, the Cuban songwriter, played a concert at Carnegie Hall, 30 years after his last visit to the United States; and Alicia Alonso, the legendary director of the National Ballet of Cuba, visited New York as part of celebrations for her 90th birthday.

Things have picked up, too, in the theater community. Two Cuban theater groups, Teatro Buendía and Teatro El Público, are performing this month in the United States as part of theater festivals in Chicago and Miami. In March, a group of Cuban playwrights and designers attended a Cuban theater conference at the University of Miami.

The exchanges follow a lull in cultural swaps that began around 2003, when the Bush administration tightened restrictions on travel to Cuba.

Lillian Manzor, director of the Cuban Theater Digital Archive at the University of Miami, said visas for cultural purposes were flowing once more. “Cubans from the island are coming to the U.S. easier — not only musicians, but whole theater groups, and academics also,” she said. “It’s a cause for optimism.”

“Blind Mouth Singing,” the play being performed here, is set deep in the fecund but ruthless Caribbean countryside. Reiderico, the teenage protagonist, has an imaginary friend, Lucero, who lives down a well but wants to escape and live in the capital. Reiderico is bullied by his bitter mother and boorish brother, but has an ally in a sweet, restive aunt named Bolivia.

The play deals with familiar Cuban themes: painful longing, fractured identity and ambivalence about leaving to seek a new life. It is dedicated to Reinaldo Arenas, the barred, gay Cuban writer who fled to the United States in 1980, and it is inspired by his first novel, “Singing From the Well,” about a child who escapes the torment of his brutal family through fantasy.

Mr. Cortiñas, who was born in Miami, writes his scripts in English with a poetry drawn from his mother tongue. “Blind Mouth Singing” has also been produced in New York and Chicago.

“The idea of parting, of seeking new horizons, that’s very Cuban,” said Henry Labrada, 18, a dance student who saw the play here. “Theater is the perfect medium for us to understand that being from here, being from there, we share the same sensibility.”

Ms. Manzor said collaborations like “Blind Mouth Singing” nurtured a growing consensus across the Florida Straits that the diaspora’s cultural output formed part of the Cuban scene.

For decades after the 1959 revolution that swept Fidel Castro to power, the official canon shunned the work of Cubans who left the island. But that position has gradually shifted.

“Every work by a Cuban dramaturge, no matter where in the world it is done, forms part of Cuban theater,” said Gerardo Fulleda León, head of the Havana-based Rita Montaner Theater Company, which produced the play. “A person’s transitory circumstance is not what defines their identity. The same applies with art.”

The process of producing “Blind Mouth Singing” began in 1999, when Mr. Fulleda invited a Cuban-American director, Jorge Luis Cacheiro, to put on a play. For years, the project stalled because Mr. Cacheiro could not get financing in the United States.

Then in 2008, Mr. Cacheiro received about $7,500 in grants for travel expenses from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Theater Communications Group and Montclair State University in New Jersey, where he teaches.

Even with the money in place, putting on the show was no picnic. The Cuban cast, which would normally spend several months rehearsing a play, had four weeks. Two actors defected to Europe before rehearsals began, and another left.

A DVD player that was part of the sound design was seized by Cuban customs. There was no wood to build the house that is the centerpiece of the set, so it was redesigned at the last minute using string that Mr. Cacheiro had brought from the United States. There was even some discussion over painting a white stool brown, because there was no paint to return it to its original color. But Mr. Cacheiro cannot wait to do it all again. “These processes are vital,” he said. “For me, they’re steps towards ending the embargo.”

He and Mr. Fulleda have plans to bring an all-American play to the Cuban capital. He is confident that, this time, it will not take a decade. “We are living in different times, and I think projects like this will happen much more quickly,” Mr. Cacheiro said. “There’s a change in the wind.”

Cuba release 'could lead to US lifting embargo'

2010-07-21T19:52:00.000-07:00

Cuba's release of all its political prisoners would improve its relations with Europe and United States, and could lead to the lifting of a US embargo, the Spanish foreign minister said on Wednesday.

Miguel Angel Moratinos welcomed as "good news" Cuban parliament chiefRicardo Alarcon's announcement to AFP on Tuesday that his "government's wish is to free all the people" not accused of murder.

The Spanish foreign minister said before parliament that such releases would yield "political consequences" for relations with the European Union and the United States, in particular a possible "lifting of the embargo" that Washington has maintained against Cuba since 1962.

In a Spain-brokered deal struck between the Catholic Church and Havana, Cuba agreed this month to free 52 of 75 detainees who had been sentenced in 2003 to prison terms of up to 28 years.

Eleven freed prisoners have already emigrated to Spain with their families.

A twelfth prisoner arrived on Wednesday and another eight were expected to arrive in Madrid later on Wednesday as part of Cuba's biggest release of political prisoners in over a decade.

According to Cuban dissidents, 115 political prisoners remain in Cuba in addition to the 52 released.

In light of the releases, Moratinos urged the European Union to change its "joint position" linking dialogue with Cuba to progress on human rights.

He told Spanish lawmakers that there was nothing "coincidental" in the releases and that they were the fruit of a six-year dialogue with the Cuban government.

Moratinos said he wanted to replace the EU's "joint position" on Cuba with a "cooperation accord" despite the reluctance of some countries, including Germany and France.

Fariñas Ends Hunger Strike

2010-07-08T20:54:00.000-07:00

SANTA CLARA, Cuba (AP) — Guillermo Fariñas, an opposition activist, ended a 134-day hunger strike on Thursday, after indications that the government would make good on its promise to release 52 political prisoners.

Mr. Fariñas took sips of water at a hospital near his home in the central city of Santa Clara, said Licet Zamora, a spokeswoman for him. Ms. Zamora described Mr. Fariñas’s condition as grave after he recently suffered a potentially fatal blood clot in his neck.

After ending his hunger strike, Mr. Fariñas, 48, a psychologist and freelance journalist, appeared to be in good spirits as he sat on the bed in his hospital room, while two nurses attended to him. Some relatives waited in a room nearby.

Kept alive by intravenous feeding, Mr. Fariñas had refused food and water since shortly after a fellow dissident, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, died Feb. 23 after a long hunger strike while in prison.

President Raúl Castro of Cuba had said Mr. Fariñas would be responsible if his hunger strike caused his death. Mr. Fariñas had demanded the release of dozens of political prisoners, and an accord reached on Wednesday between the government and officials from the Roman Catholic Church in Cuba prompted him to agree to abandon his hunger strike.

Under the agreement, which was brokered by Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos of Spain, the government promised to free five political prisoners soon and send them to Spain. The authorities also pledged to follow that release by releasing 47 additional political prisoners in the next two or three months.

Finally?

2010-06-29T16:55:00.000-07:00

"This bill has been needed for a long time," House of Representatives Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson said in a statement ahead of committee action on Wednesday.

The bipartisan bill that Peterson helped craft with Representative Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, enjoys broad support from U.S. farm and business groups that favor ending the nearly 50-year-old U.S. embargo on communist-led Cuba.

The bill is expected to clear the committee and be sent to the full House, where it will face strong resistance from conservative lawmakers and Cuban-Americans who oppose any step to ease restrictions on trade and travel with Cuba until a democratic government is in power in Havana.

Proposals to lift the ban have floundered in Congress over the last decade due to concerns about human rights abuses in the one-party state built from Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution.

President Barack Obama has taken some steps to improve relations with Havana, such as allowing unlimited family travel and remittances and greater telecommunications links.

But Washington says the Cuban government has failed to reciprocate, making it politically difficult for the White House to move further in easing the Cold War-era embargo.

Cuban officials have encouraged recent U.S. trade delegations visiting Havana to work for abolish the travel ban because the arrival of more American tourists would give the government more money to buy U.S. goods.

Business groups mounted a lobbying effort on Tuesday to ensure Peterson would have enough votes in the committee to approve the bill without any changes.

"Enabling Americans to travel to Cuba and expand already legal export operations is an important first step to reforming U.S. policy toward Cuba," Bruce Josten, top lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a letter to lawmakers.

Congress exempted farm sales from the long-standing U.S. embargo on Cuba in 2000 so long as Havana paid for the goods in cash and money transfers were handled by a third-country bank.

The administration of former President George W. Bush angered many farm-state lawmakers by interpreting the cash payment rule in a narrow way as payment before shipment.

Even so, U.S. farm exports to Cuba reached a record $710 million in 2008, before dropping to $528 million in 2009

Inching Closer Toward (Legal) American Tourists in Cuba?

2010-03-26T12:49:00.000-07:00

Cuba's hotels could manage a sudden influx of 1 million American tourists if the US Congress lifts a 47-year ban on travel to Cuba, Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero said.

Additionally, the Caribbean nation is set to expand its capacity of about 50,000 rooms, with groundbreaking scheduled for at least nine hotels in 2010, Marrero said. About 200,000 rooms may be added in the "medium to long term,", he said. Cuba is also seeking investment partners for 10 golf courses and luxury hotels aimed at Americans, according to a ministry official.

“I’m convinced that today, with the available capacity, we could be receiving the American tourists without any problem,” Marrero said in an interview yesterday in Cancun, Mexico where he was attending a conference of 40 American and Cuban tourist industry representatives.

The tourism industry meeting comes as the U.S. Congress considers a law that would lift the ban on travel to Cuba. Senator Byron Dorgan, one of 38 co-sponsors of the bill, said he has 60 votes lined up to win passage of the measure this summer. Similar legislation introduced in the House has 178 co-sponsors and needs 218 votes to pass if all 435 members vote.

“This is a 50 year-old failed policy,” Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, told the meeting yesterday in a phone call from Washington. “Punishing Americans by restricting their right to travel just makes no sense at all.”

Obama last year ended restrictions on Cuban-Americans traveling to Cuba and transferring money to relatives back home. The U.S. State Department has also held talks in Havana with Cuban officials about restoring mail service and cooperation on migration issues.

Tourism to Cuba increased 3.5 percent amid the global financial crisis to 2.4 million visitors last year, with 900,000 visitors from Canada leading the way, Jose Manuel Bisbe, commercial director for the Tourism Ministry, said in an interview this week in Havana.

‘Forbidden City’

“Havana has been the forbidden city for so long that it will be a boom destination even in the low season,” said Bisbe, who estimates Cuba will add another 10,000 hotel rooms in the next two or three years.

Daniel Garcia, who has sold tourists used books in Old Havana since 1994, said more Americans would be good for business.

“The gringos can’t help but spend their money,” Garcia, 43, said at his stand in front of the neo-classical building that housed the U.S. Embassy before Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution. “They are the easiest tourists to sell to. They never ask for discounts.”

Marrero said the government can’t finance development of tourist infrastructure on its own so it’s scouting for foreign partners such as Majorca, Spain-based Sol Melia SA, which already manages 24 hotels on the Communist island.

“The Cubans have provided us with a fairly complete picture of their tourism product and future opportunities for U.S. businesses to work in this market,” Lisa Simon, president of the Lexington, Kentucky-based National Tour Association, said in an e-mailed statement. “We look forward to a follow up conference next year in Cuba, should the legislation pending in Congress be approved.” -- Written by: Jonathan Levin, jlevin20@bloomberg.net

Obama Addresses Human Rights in Cuba

2010-03-25T13:29:00.000-07:00

"Recent events in Cuba, including the tragic death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, the repression visited upon Las Damas de Blanco, and the intensified harassment of those who dare to give voice to the desires of their fellow Cubans, are deeply disturbing.

These events underscore that instead of embracing an opportunity to enter a new era, Cuban authorities continue to respond to the aspirations of the Cuban people with a clenched fist.

Today, I join my voice with brave individuals across Cuba and a growing chorus around the world in calling for an end to the repression, for the immediate, unconditional release of all political prisoners in Cuba, and for respect for the basic rights of the Cuban people.

During the course of the past year, I have taken steps to reach out to the Cuban people and to signal my desire to seek a new era in relations between the governments of the US and Cuba. I remain committed to supporting the simple desire of the Cuban people to freely determine their future and to enjoy the rights and freedoms that define the Americas, and that should be universal to all human beings."

Guantanamo Deadline To Close Missed

2010-01-21T15:02:00.000-08:00

President Obama’s self-imposed deadline to shutter the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, did not pass unnoticed.

Thursday — exactly one year after Mr. Obama ordered the closure of the prison — veterans’ groups made the rounds on Capitol Hill to pressure lawmakers to support the administration’s cause, saying the prison’s use endangers troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, human-rights advocates clad in orange jumpsuits marched from the White House to Capitol Hill in protest of the delay.

“Every day that the facility at Guantanamo Bay remains open and detainees are held there without trial is another day that terror networks have an effective recruiting poster,” Jon Soltz, the director of VoteVets.org, a group that works to elect progressive veterans to Congress, said in a letter to lawmakers signed by more than 2,000 veterans. It shows “that the United States applies the laws to some, but is hypocritical when it comes to others.”

On Jan. 22, 2009, Mr. Obama signed an executive order directing the Central Intelligence Agency to close the prison, but logistical and political obstacles have stalled — if not nearly derailed — progress.

Since Mr. Obama took office, 40 prisoners have been released to their homelands or other countries. But the failed terrorist attack aboard a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day has complicated the process. Nearly half of the detainees remaining at Guantanamo Bay are from Yemen, and the administration barred the transfer of prisoners to that country because Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen were behind the plot.

US Anti-Terror Paranoia Means Cuba Lumped With Iran and Syria

2010-01-04T21:45:00.000-08:00

Cuba denounced as "anti-terrorist paranoia" new U.S. security measures for air travelers from the island and 13 other countries, but passengers waiting to fly from Havana said on Monday thorough checks before heading to the United States were nothing new. The measures call for inspecting baggage and patting down U.S.-bound passengers from four countries -- Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria -- that the U.S. government considers state sponsors of terrorism and 10 other "countries of interest."

Cuban Blogs Best Weapons Against Tyranny

2009-12-21T15:53:00.000-08:00

Cuban blogger Yoanni Sanchez has threatened and angered the Cuban system and its authorities respectively. She has denounced through her blog "Generacion Y" the atrocities and the violations of basic human rights that the Castro government has been doing for more than half a century. Oppression and suppression of freedom of speech and liberty have been their core policy.

Yoanni though, has gone beyond the state-controlled media and its barriers. She has managed shown the world what no other international news bureau or correspondent (including CNN or AP) has had the courage to show: how you can get beaten and humiliated if you are not a sympathizer of the Revolution.

She has published on her blog a video of her attempt to get authorization to travel, and shown how this has been rejected without any substantial excuse (Cubans are forbidden to leave the country freely. Well they are, through a hand-made vessel or even a tire that often drowns at sea or is attacked by sharks).

Recently she wore a wig and managed to get in a "bloggers conference" in Havana and denounced what she called for access restrictions to the Internet for Cubans. Days later she and her husband suffered injuries from a group of "revolutionaries" that attacked them mercilessly.

Internet and Web 2.0 seems to be the only doors that people in the island have in order to express their anger and dismay at what has been 50-plus years of suffering and violations of human rights by both Fidel and Raul Castro. This new option could prove vital for democracy to begin its fight back. Ironically though, it is Raul Castro who has allowed Cubans more access to technology, including cellphones and Internet--and also access to the hotels, which were forbidden under Fidel's term, and it is where Yoanni sometimes has to go to in order to make posts to her blog and evade the restrictions.

Big news companies like CNN should learn from her, but seems their access and permission to work could be jeopardized if some of these stories are aired. that is why blogs are, perhaps, the best weapon Cubans have to fight this tyranny and show these atrocities to the world.

Travel Ban Costing US Businesses $1.1 Billion Annually

2009-12-21T15:16:00.000-08:00

U.S. tourism companies could take in at least $1.1 billion a year on trips to Cuba if Washington didn't ban most of its citizens from visiting the island, officials said Wednesday during a videoconference with American tour operators.

That figure includes $600 million in sales by airlines, $300 million for travel agents and $200 million in U.S. tourism-related exports and services, including food and drink items that could be sold to Cuba as well as spending on advertising to promote Cuba as a destination, said Miguel Figueras, a top aide to Cuban Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero.

Figueras provided few details on how Cuba arrived at the numbers, but pointed to a previous study by the American Society of Travel Agents in asserting that without travel restrictions, 1.8 million U.S. tourists would come to Cuba annually. That includes some 482,000 Cuban-Americans visiting relatives on the island, he said.

More than 2 million foreign tourists come to Cuba every year, with the biggest numbers from Canada, Britain, Italy, Spain and France.

It wasn't clear how much of what Cuba was estimating would be new business for U.S. tour operators, since many people interested in visiting Cuba are likely to take trips elsewhere and not simply stay home because they can't come to the island. Journalists attending the videoconference were not allowed to ask questions.

Currently, U.S. citizens, other than Cuban-Americans, may legally visit Cuba only if they obtain a license from the Treasury Department for government, journalistic, religious or humanitarian purposes.

The embargo took its current form in February 1962 and prohibits nearly all trade between both countries, although the travel ban was eased during the Carter administration. Legislation introduced in both the U.S. House and Senate would end the travel ban, but a series of similar proposals in the past have never made it to floor votes.

Dozens of representatives from Cuba's government-run hotels, travel agencies and rental car outlets participated in the video link to a gathering of a similar number of U.S. tourism executives at a Washington hotel.

One U.S. tour operator wanted to know why he couldn't buy Cuban beach property and build his own hotel -- an impossibility in a communist country where the government dominates all aspects of the economy.

Another asked if Cubans are still prohibited from entering tourist hotels, a ban that stood for decades but was lifted in April 2008.

When asked about golf, Figueras said the government would like to build 10 new courses. Now, there are just two -- a nine-hole course in Havana and an 18-hole one at the beach resort of Varadero. The government has talked for decades about more golf courses, but hasn't yet built even one.

US Travel Industry Gearing for Influx to Cuba

2009-12-17T11:27:00.000-08:00

It's too soon for Americans to plan a Cuban vacation of beach, mambo and mojitos, but the U.S. travel industry is gearing up for a return to its largest Caribbean destination before Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution.

Tour operators held a video conference with Cuban tourism officials in Havana on Wednesday and asked them if they are ready for the "rush" of Americans if the U.S. travel ban is lifted as proposed by legislation now under consideration in the U.S. Congress.

"Americans really want to see Cuba," said Robert Whitely, president of the U.S. Tour Operators, which together with the National Tour Association also present at the event, handles 75 percent of all package tour business to the Caribbean.

"We predict that at least 850,000 Americans will go to Cuba in the first year," Whitely said.

That does not include an estimated 480,000 Americans who will go to Cuba on Caribbean cruises when U.S. ships are allowed to dock there, and another 480,000 Cuban American visiting family in Cuba each year, a Cuban official said.

Cuba plans to build 30 hotels over the next six years with the help of foreign investors, adding 10,000 rooms to the 48,600 that exist now, as well as golf courses, said Miguel Figueras, the top adviser to the Cuban tourism minister.

Some 2.5 million tourists visited Cuba this year, mostly from Canada and Europe, said Figueras, who indicated that U.S. companies are losing out to the tune of $1 billion a year.

According to Cuban estimates based on 2 million Americans visiting Cuba a year, U.S. airlines stand to earn $600 million and travel agencies $300 million annually, Figueras said.

President Barack Obama has said he wants to improve ties with communist-run Cuba and lifted restrictions introduced by the Bush administration on visits and family remittances by Cuban Americans to the island.

But whether American tourists will return to Cuba will hinge on debate in Congress, where opponents say sanctions should not be lifted until Cuba frees political prisoners and undertakes democratic reforms to its one-party state.

They say American tourism will help prop up the communist government of President Raul Castro, who succeed his ailing brother last year.

A bill to end the travel ban sponsored by Democrat Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts and Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona has 195 backers in the House of Representatives, 23 votes short, supporters of the measure said.

Similar legislation in the Senate has the support of key senators such as Republican Richard Lugar of Indiana, but needs 60 votes to pass.

"They are within striking distance in the House," said Phil Peters, a Cuba expert at the Lexington Institute think tank.

No action on the bill is expected until the spring.

UN Condemns US Embargo on Cuba

2009-10-28T10:58:00.000-07:00

The UN General Assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly condemned the 47-year US trade embargo on Cuba. The vote was 187-3 in opposition to the embargo, with only Israel and Palau supporting the United States (as they did last year).

"The blockade is an uncultured act of arrogance," said the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodriguez. He likened the policy to "an act of genocide" that is "ethically unacceptable."

US Ambassador Susan Rice said the Obama administration was committed to writing "a new chapter to the story" by engaging with the Cuban government.

Senior US Official Holds Talks in Havana

2009-09-29T20:25:00.000-07:00

A senior American diplomat had high-level talks with the Cuban government in Havana, the State Department said Tuesday.

Bisa Williams, acting deputy assistant secretary, met this week with Deputy Foreign Minister Dagoberto Rodriguez during a six-day trip to Cuba, Assistant Secretary P.J. Crowley said.

Williams was in Havana to meet with Cuban officials about restoring direct mail service between Cuba and the United States. Crowley said she extended her stay to meet with Cuban officials and members of Cuban civil service about various issues, including ongoing migration talks.

She also visited areas in western Cuba affected by hurricane damage in 2008.

Crowley said these are first such talks between the two countries in several years.

"It's getting back to something we used to do regularly," Crowley said. "We've done this before, and we are starting to do it again."

Huge 'Peace Concert' in Havana

2009-09-21T21:19:00.000-07:00

Hundreds of thousands of Cubans flocked to sprawling Revolution Plaza yesterday for an open-air "peace concert" headlined by Colombian rocker Juanes, among many others.

Some estimates of the crowd were put at more than one million for the five-hour concert. Juanes' visit to Cuba was clearly the biggest by an outsider since Pope John Paul II's 1998 tour.

Hundreds of public buses ferried young and old to the concert site. Most concertgoers wore white - to symbolize peace - and some held up signs reading "Peace on Earth" and "We Love You Juanes."

Travel Agents Booking Trips to Cuba Win Suit

2009-04-14T21:28:00.000-07:00

Florida travel agencies that book trips to Cuba gained a victory Tuesday when a federal district judge overturned a state law that required them to post a bond of $250,000 each.

The judge, Alan S. Gold, said the law was in direct conflict with the federal government's authority to set foreign policy. "The State of Florida," Judge Gold's decision said, "is not entitled to adopt a foreign policy under our Constitution or interfere with the exclusive prerogative of the United States to establish a carefully balnaced approach to relations with foreign countries, including Cuba."

The decision coincides with the Obama administration's move to ease restrictions on Cuban-Americans' travel to the island.

Travel agents celebrated their victory and said they planned to seek compensation from the state for legal expenses totaling several hundred thousand dollars.

(Credit: Carmen Gentile, April 14, 2009, NY Times; Image by TimJim1037, Flickr.com)

Will Obama Open Up All US Travel To Cuba?

2009-04-14T21:03:00.000-07:00

Few things engender hypocrisy more broadly than does US policy on Cuba. It's embarrassingly inconsistent for Washington to maintain a trade embargo against Havana, and bar US citizens from traveling to Cuba, when America gleefully does business with regimes like China, whose human rights violations are more egregious than Cuba's.

On Monday, the Obama administration lifted restrictions on Cuban-American visits and remittances to family members in Cuba. It also announced measures to get broader cell phone and television service to Cubans on the island, which the White House said would "open the flow of information" there. But they should at least be followed this year by and end to the travel ban for the rest of the US population -- that is, if Obama throws his support behind a new bill to end it (which may or may not have enough votes in Congress to pass).

Backing the elimination of the general travel ban would signal a more robust interest in opening dialogue with Cuba. At the same time, it would just as decidedly put the ball in Havana's court. The Castros have insisted that they won't accept conditions for having the embargo lifted. Still, Fidel Castro wrote in an op-ed for Cuba's state-controlled media last week that Havana now wants to negotiate "mutually advantageous" agreements with the US. If the US were to drop the Cuba travel ban, it would almost certainly shift hemispheric attention to what Cuba would then do to reciprocate, such as releasing imprisoned dissidents or permitting more free enterprise. Should the Castros do nothing, Obama can then at least say he made the first significant gesture, but won't have given away the trade embargo.

Not that the embargo gives Obama and the US as much leverage as they might think. What Obama will find in Trinidad is that the embargo is the single most unpopular policy in the hemisphere. Getting Cuba right could resonate for Obama well beyond the Florida Straits. Obama has made it very clear to the world that he cares about how US foreign policy is perceived around the globe. Given that the embargo is one of the most unpopular policies the US practices in the world, with the United Nations voting 185-to-3 last year to condemn it, he risks making his administration look a lot like the Bush Administration if he hangs on to it.

(Credit: Tim Padgett, April 14, 2009, Time Magazine)

Cuban Travel Ban Almost A Thing Of The Past? (NOT an April Fools joke!)

2009-04-01T22:29:00.000-07:00

A bipartisan group of senators predicted Tuesday that Congress was ready to pass legislation to allow Americans to travel to Cuba.

Removing the travel ban would produce a burst of tourism, create thousands of jobs and generate as much as $1.6 billion in business a year, an independent research group said.

Sponsors said the bill would free Americans to travel to the one place in the world they can't go and encourage Cubans to push for democratic reforms by exposing them to new people and information.

"Punishing the American people in our effort to somehow deal a blow to the Castro government has not made any sense at all," said Senator Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.). "At long last, this policy, which has been in place for 50 years and has not worked, will finally be removed."

On one side of the debate in Congress are liberal Democrats, Republican free-traders and farm-state members of both parties who seek a wider market for food sales.

It's about time.

Happy 50 (Now, Let's Get It Right)

2008-12-31T10:38:00.000-08:00

Fifty years ago, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro declared a Cuban revolution. This one, Castro said, would not be like Cuba's 1898 independence from Spain, "when the Americans came and took over."

Since that New Year's night in 1959, 10 US presidents have tried to overthrow, undermine or cajole Castro, to no avail. Covert operations, including President Kennedy's Bay of Pigs invasion, failed to dislodge the communist government. A Cold War standoff with Russia over missile bases on the island brought the superpowers to the brink of nuclear war, but it didn't budge Castro. Diplomatic isolation didn't work. And a trade embargo to protest the expropriation of US property, prevent the export of revolution and press for democracy and human rights has been utterly ineffectual. Rather, it has provided cover for the Cuban government's own deficiencies and served as a pretext for repression.

In short, America has had fifty years of failure. The incoming Obama administration should move quickly to embark on a rapprochement with Cuba and bring an end to punitive policies, especially the economic embargo. The UN condemns it, the European Union is trading with Cuba, and Latin America is urging the US to allow Cuba back into the fold. This policy will take time and political will, but it is in our national interest and, ultimately, in Cuba's.

The US already exports about $700 million worth of food to Cuba annually. Obama should expand this. Obama should also press for human rights reforms -- but human rights should no longer be an obstacle to talk and trade with Cuba (unless the US is prepared to consider halting trade with other regimes with checkered human rights records -- Egypt, Russia, and communist state China, to name just a few).

Peaceful change in Cuba, 90 miles from Florida, is in the interest of the United States. Communication, travel and trade are excellent ways to push for reform of the one-party state. Tourists carrying books and ideas serve as ambassadors for democracy. Manufactured goods speak for the creativity of an open economy. The Cuban people are highly educated after a 50-year revolution, and extremely resourceful after a half century of economic hardship. Their aspirations are fertile ground for change.

(Excerpted from the LA Times, Editorials, December 31, 2008)

Obama & Fidel

2008-11-04T23:14:00.000-08:00

Fidel Castro praised Barack Obama today as a smarter and less warlike than John McCain, but stopped short of endorsing either US presidential candidate.

Cuba's former president said he delayed weighing in until the US Election Day so that "no one would have time to say I wrote something that could be utilized by the candidates in their campaigns."

"Without a doubt, Obama is more intelligent, cultured and levelheaded than his Republican adversary," Castro said. "McCain is old, bellicose, uncultured, of little intelligence and not healthy."

Help - please...

2008-09-06T22:13:00.000-07:00

Cuban officials on Saturday urged the US to loosen the decades-old trade embargo on the island in the wake of deadly flooding caused by powerful storms.

A statement written by the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Cuban officials acknowledged that the US government has recently pledged to give humanitarian aid to victims of the severe flooding.

But "if the government of the United States is really willing to cooperate with the Cuban people in face of the tragedy of the hurricane, it is requested to allow the sale to Cuba of those materials considered indispensable and to suspend the restrictions that prevent US companies from offering private commercial credits to our country for the purchase of food in the United States," the statement said.

Hurricane Ike, a dangerous Category 4 storm with 135 mph winds neared Cuba Saturday.

Cuba has already been hit by Hurricane Gustav in recent weeks.

Cuban Musician Faces Censorship, Jail

2008-08-29T17:45:00.000-07:00

Cuban musician Gorko Aguila, 39, went to court in handcuffs on Friday, charged with "social dangerousness," which could bring a prison sentence of up to four years.

Lead singer of punk band "Porno Para Ricardo", Aguila received applause and shouts of support from friends as he was taken from a police car up to the steps of the Havana court, which had drawn a crowd of foreign diplomats, foreign correspondents and government officials during the day.

Aguila's songs have fiercely criticized Cuba's communist government and its leaders Fidel and Raul Castro. The group's CDs are banned in Cuba but copies are circulated widely underground.

Ciro Diaz, a guitarist with the band, said he had been told the government considered Aguila "an anti-social" because "he didn't vote, didn't go to meetings of the Revolution Defense Committee and made songs against the Cuban system."

Happy 55th!

2008-07-26T13:43:00.000-07:00

55 years ago today, President Raul Castro, brother Fidel, and a ragtag band of rebels lead an audacious armed attack, launching a revolution that changed an island, and changed the world.

Happy 55th.

EU Vote Alters Cuba Sanctions Policy

2008-06-20T12:47:00.000-07:00

The European Union voted to remove its diplomatic sanctions against Cuba despite opposition from the United States.

As part of its action, the EU also approved conditions on Cuba in return for what the Associated Press called "sanction-free relations." These include the release of all political prisoners; access for Cubans to the internet; and a double-track approach for all EU delegations arriving in Cuba, allowing them to meet both opposition figures and members of the Cuban government.

The EU external relations commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, said they felt they had to change the policy in order to encourage more reform in Cuba. The removal of sanctions is an attempt to both acknowledge and encourage more reforms by President Raul Castro.

Cuban Blogger Denied Travel Visa To Accept Prestigious Journalism Award In Spain

2008-05-06T22:54:00.000-07:00

Yoani Sanchez, creator of Havana's Generacion Y blog, was denied a travel visa by Cuban officials that would have allowed her to fly to Spain to receive a top journalism award.

The blogger now apparently will not be able to personally receive the prestigious Ortega y Gasset prize given out each year by the Spanish newspaper El Pais, which she was to have been given Wednesday.

"I have cancelled tonight's flight to Madrid", Sanchez, 32, said upon learning that she would not be given authorization to make the trip.

"It's another way to remind us that we are like little children who need to get our parents' permission to leave the house," she said.

Generacion Y chronicles everyday Cubans' daily woes. Sanchez said her request for a travel visa is the "perfect test" to see if Cuba's new President Raul Castro is serious about opening up the regime.

El Pais praised Sanchez's "vivacious" writing style and "shrewdness" in overcoming hurdles to freedom of expression in Cuba when it announced her prize. The blog, hosted on a server in Germany, is Cuba's most popular, receiving 1.2 million hits a month.

Sanchez was also selected by Time Magazine as one of the world's 100 most influential people.

"What makes me happy is that I made the list not by being a famous singer or breaking athletic records, but simply by being a citizen."

Sanchez said she was surprised by the "sepulchral silence" in the Cuban press about her making Time Magazine's annual list.

"They announced that Bolivian President Evo Morales made the list in the Cuban press but made no mention that a Cuban also made it," she said.

Cuba's Rebel With A Blog Wins Prestigious Journalism Award

2008-04-08T16:45:00.000-07:00

Independent Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, who chronicles the woes of life in communist-run Cuba, has been awarded one of Spain's top journalism awards, the Ortega and Gasset prize for digital journalism.

Spanish newspaper El Pais, which awards the prize annually, said Sanchez won it for her "shrewdness" in overcoming hurdles to freedom of expression in Cuba, her "vivacious" style and her drive to join the "global space of citizen journalism."

Her Generacion Y blog is the most popular blog posted from Cuba. It received 1.2 million hits in February alone.

"This is great encouragement for Cuban bloggers who are still at an embryonic stage," she told Reuters by telephone from her home in Havana. "It recognizes that Cuban blogs can be a parallel source of information, reflection and independent opinions from Cuba's official media," the 32-year old said.

Sanchez has drawn considerable readership by writing about her daily life and describing the economic hardships and political constraints in her country.

"Who is the last in line for a toaster?" was the title of a recent blog that satirized the lifting of a ban on a sales of computers, DVD players and other appliances that Cubans long for, though toaster will not be freely sold until 2010.

Kudos to the very courageous Yoani Sanchez.

Tourist Apartheid Finally Ends In Cuba

2008-03-31T22:43:00.000-07:00

Apartheid, in one form or another, is alive and well today in many 'civilized countries' of the world. In some countries, it's a figurative apartheid -- discriminatory norms, unspoken policy and unfair laws; in others, it's a literal apartheid that manifests in walls, fences and other impediments.

Despite history's dismal view on the age old practice (and the historical fact that it only serves to exacerbate existing problems), the human temptation to 'isolate as solution' still manages to persist as a popular manner in which to deal with seemingly problematical minority groups.

Fortunately, Raul Castro has taken steps to finally end Cuba's long-standing policy of "tourist apartheid."

For years, Cuban citizens have been banned from hotels and resorts, as well as many of the most beautiful beaches on the island. In their place: tourists. Europeans, Canadians, Mexicans, Americans, Japanese -- hell, anyone really, as long as they're not Cubans.

Additional recent reforms have certainly been crowd pleasers (Cubans are now allowed to buy computers, DVD players, microwave ovens, plasma televisions and cell phones), but the lifting of the ban on citizens enjoying the hotels, resorts and beaches, previously only reserved for non-Cubans, is a particularly symbolic victory for Cuba's everyman.

Relaxing the hotel ban eliminates a glaring historical contradiction within the Cuban revolution. When the Castro brothers' rebels took power in 1959, they joyfully overran beach resorts and hotels that had been the playgrounds of high-rolling foreigners, declaring them open to all Cubans. Their noble vision of equality for all clearly got perverted.

Despite the restrictions over the years, Cubans have been able to clearly see what they've been missing. The tourism industry now generates $2 billion a year, and while the US travel and economic embargo limits contact with Americans, Cubans mix freely with other foreigners.

Cuba's actions, although painfully long in coming, should be an example to other countries around the world that apartheid, in any form, is counter-productive and immoral.

Hell Hath No Fury

2008-03-27T08:14:00.000-07:00

Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez has something to say to say and she thinks the government is trying to gag her.

For the past 11 months, the 32-year-old cyber rebel has ruthlessly disparaged life on the socialist island in her Generacion Y blog (English version), tackling taboo topics like the country's aging leadership and what she sees as Raul Castro's "vague promises of change."

She even called for Fidel Castro's resignation months before he issued it and suggested that the next ruler be a "pragmatic housewife" instead of a soldier, charismatic leader or a great orater.

Since last Thursday, Sanchez charges, internet users in Cuba are experiencing difficulty logging on to her web site. She is convinced government censors added filtering software to her page to intentionally slow down the connection.

"So, the anonymous censors of our famished cyberspace have tried to shut me in a room, turn off the light and not let my friends in," Sanchez blogged on Monday.

"It won't work," she vowed. "This is just fuel for my fire."

The internet, she says, has become a forum where Cubans are airing complaints. "The authorities are afraid this is turning into something massive."

And, unlike the rest of the press on the island, there is no government control over the printed word on the internet. "We've gone beyond the status quo," said Sanchez.

Her blog, posted on a server in Germany, is growing in popularity. Last month, she says it received over 1.2 million hits. Sanchez believes about a quarter of her readership resides on the island, mostly young Cubans.

It's A New Dawn, It's A New Day

2008-02-29T07:35:00.000-08:00

Cuba finally signed two UN human rights pacts that former president Fidel Castro failed to endorse.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights both came into force in 1976 at the height of the Cold War.

In June, the UN Human Rights Council dropped Cuba from a list of special investigatory mandates for countries where human rights records are of particular concern, in a move criticized by the US and Canada.

A European diplomat in Havana called the signing "a first step in the right direction" by Raul Castro. (Photo by Nigel Atherton)

Fidel Steps Aside

2008-02-19T00:25:00.000-08:00

"To my dear compatriots, who gave me the immense honor in recent days of electing me a member of parliament ... I communicate to you that I will not aspire to or accept -- I repeat, not aspire to or accept -- the positions of President of Council of State and Commander in Chief."

Fidel Castro, 81, is retiring as Cuba's head of state, forty-nine years after he seized power in an armed revolution.

Castro's supporters admired his ability to provide a high level of health care and education for citizens while remaining fully independent of the United States.

Castro's detractors called him a dictator whose totalitarian government systematically denied individual freedoms and civil liberties such as speech, movement and assembly.

Monarchs excepted, Castro was the world's longest ruling head of state.

Barack, meet Fidel. Fidel, meet Barack.

2008-02-12T22:51:00.001-08:00

In the Chesapeake Rout, according to exit polls in Maryland, Obama won:

* Latino voters by six points: 53-47

* All religions (including Catholics)

* All age groups (including seniors)

* All regions

* All education levels

* and, Women by 21 points

World Mourns Tata Guines, "King of the Congas"

2008-02-06T23:38:00.000-08:00

Tata Guines, Cuba's most famous conga drummer, has been buried outside Havana after a six decade career that helped popularize Afro-Cuban rhythms, worldwide.

Known as the "King of the Congas" and "Golden Hands," the 77-year old died Monday after being hospitalized for hypertension.

Mourners sang, clapped and swayed at a ceremony yesterday in his hometown of Guines -- which he took as his stage name at the start of his career.

Guines took the stage in Havana in the early 1940s and moved to the US in 1957, where he performed with Josephine Baker, Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. Guines returned to Cuba in 1959 in protest to the racial segregation he experienced in the US.

"Fame did not extend beyond the stage. Once you left the stage, it was like the signs said: 'Whites Only'," Guines said.

California Makes First (And Long-Overdue) Trade Mission To Cuba

2008-01-21T18:21:00.000-08:00

California, the top U.S. food producing state, sent its first official agricultural trade mission to Cuba, hoping to tap into a potential $180 million food market.

While other states have been selling to Cuba for seven years (an exception to the trade embargo was granted by Washington in 2000), California has only dipped its toe in the Cuban market, selling products worth just $735,000 to Cuba in 2006.

"Some of us might be a little late in getting there, but we are here," California Food and Agriculture Secretary A.G. Kawamura told reporters in Havana today. Kawamura is leading a delegation of companies seeking Cuban contracts for dairy products, wine, grapes, figs, nuts and other specialty fruits. Estimates are that California can provide Cuba with more than $180 million worth of products from Californian farmers and ranchers.

"California finally is getting off the dime and into trade with Cuba," said Greg Estevane, whose company Global Strategies has sold Californian wine and tomato paste to Cuba. Estevane said that was because the Bush administration is on the way out and the financial restrictions it introduced on business with cuba may be lifted.

What Would Jesus Do? Hint: Defy The Ban

2008-01-15T19:18:00.000-08:00

Pastors For Peace is an organization of courageous men and women who believe that the American blockade against Cuba is unconstitutional, mean spirited -- and most importantly, immoral. So what do they do?

In the tradition of Martin Luther King's non-violent action, Pastors For Peace stands up to the US Treasury Department and blatantly defies the ban -- in other words, they exercise their right to travel wherever they please (in this case, Cuba). What's more, they bring (literally) boat loads of humanitarian goods to the island (a recent caravan delivered more than 100 tons of humanitarian aid, including school buses, medicine, clothes and books).

"As people of faith and conscience, it is our duty to resist and condemn this cruel US policy," declared Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr, Executive Director and founder of IFCO (Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization), a 40-year old ecumenical agency. "IFCO/Pastors For Peace believes the ban is illegal under international law because it uses medicine and food as weapons of war to force another nation to change its government."

Since 1992, Pastors For Peace has made 20 caravans to Cuba (always delivering humanitarian aide). Each time, the Caravan has encountered resistance from US officials, but each time, the US officials back down (proof of the power of organized, motivated and determined people).

"We can not allow the government to regulate our conscience. Our faith and humanity demand that we provide 'a cup of cold water' (Matthew 25:35) to our brothers and sisters in need. We can not 'surrender unto Caesar' the right to decide who are our brothers and sisters. We can not accept a law that commands us to treat them as "the enemy" when our faith commands us to love them as members of our own family."

For more information on humanitarian trips to Cuba, go to the Pastors For Peace site.

Congrats Guantanamo, You're A Strapping Six Years Old!

2008-01-10T12:45:00.000-08:00

Ah, birthdays. Lovely milestones that mark the passing of time. In this case, it's hard to believe Guantanamo is a strapping six years old!

The concentration camp at Guantanamo puts the US in such lovely company as Germany, Bosnia, Israel, Iran, Pakistan, China, Cuba and Somalia -- all countries who've imprisoned people without charge, trial or judicial review.

Amnesty International is leading worldwide events, rallies and meetings to mark the sixth anniversary of the first transfers of detainees to Guantanamo. Over 1200 parliamentary representatives from many countries around the world have signed a declaration calling to end illegal detention by the US government carried out in the name of counter-terrorism. Hundreds signed from parliaments across continental Europe, the UK and Israel -- countries that are the staunchest US allies in the "war on terror." (Photo courtesy lewishamdreamer, Flickr)

Ex-CIA Philip Agee, Dead at 72 in Havana

2008-01-09T11:06:00.000-08:00

Philip Agee, an ex-CIA agent who often infuriated American intelligence officials, has died in Havana. He was 72.

Agee quit the CIA in 1969 after 12 years working mostly in Latin America, at a time when leftist movements were gaining sympathizers and prominence. His 1975 book "Inside The Company: CIA Diary" cited alleged CIA misdeeds against leftists in the region and included a 22-page list of purported agency operatives.

Granma, Cuba's Communist Party newspaper, said Agee died Monday night and described him as a "loyal friend of Cuba, and fervent defender of the peoples' fight for a better world."

Agee's US passport was revoked in 1979. US officials said he had threatened national security. After years of living in Hamburg, Germany, Agee moved to Havana to open a travel web site. The site, CubaLinda, is designed to bring US tourists to Cuba, offering packages, tours and other help that is largely off limits to Americans (because of the travel embargo).

The Candidates (And Huckabee's Ever-Changing Views)

2007-12-30T01:15:00.000-08:00

With Fidel Castro ailing and Cuba's leader-designate, Raul Castro, also advanced in age, it appears likely that the next U.S. president will need to alter policy to accommodate Cuba's changing political environs. The rhetoric and proposed policies of the presidential candidates towards Cuba will undoubtedly hold weight in the upcoming contest.

Following are distillations of some of the candidates' views:

Hillary Clinton: In a 2000 speech at the Council of Foreign Relations, Senator Clinton said she was opposed to lifting the embargo as long as Cuba is "undemocratic."

Joseph Biden, Jr.: Supports the embargo, as well as for the development of a strategy for "democratization in a post-Castro Cuba." In 1996, Biden voted for the Helms-Burton Act, which sought more stringent international sanctions against the Island.

John Edwards: Supports the embargo, but said he would support and end to travel restrictions on Cuban families. During the 2004 presidential campaign, Edwards said he supported sanctions that "target Castro's regime but help the innocent Cuban people, allowing trade for food and medical supplies."

Mike Gravel: Opposes the embargo and has called for a normalization of relations.

Dennis Kucinich: Kucinich says US policy toward Cuba "has failed." He calls for an end to the embargo and a repeal of the Helms-Burton Act. He also opposes any travel bans.

Barack Obama: In August 2007, Obama called for travel and remittance restrictions on Cuban-Americans to be lifted. In an op-ed in the Miami Herald, Obama said he would engage in bilateral talks with Cuba to send the message that the US is willing to normalize relations with Cuba upon evidence of a democratic opening there. He has voted twice to cut off TV Marti funding.

In terms of the Republicans, they are all strongly against lifting the embargo, as well as lifting the travel ban (with the exception of Ron Paul, who is generally opposed to the embargo and travel restrictions). Interestingly, Mike Huckabee previously supported lifting the Cuban embargo, but has since changed his opinion. Just this month, Huckabee said he would veto any effort to end the trade restrictions. However in 2002, Huckabee argued that the embargo was harmful to American business.

Coy Castro Hints At Retirement

2007-12-30T00:56:00.000-08:00

Fidel Castro, in a letter delivered to Cuba's Parliament this week, said the he "was not a person clinging to power." He elaborated, saying that as a young man, he hoped to cling to power, but has long since outgrown the urge.

Castro continued, "Let me add that I was (clinging to power), because of excessive youth and lack of conscience. What made me change? Life itself." The letter drew a standing ovation from 509 legislators at the National Assembly where his seat sat empty next to his 76-year-old brother, Raul Castro.

Castro, 81, has not said when -- or if -- he will step aside for good after emergency intestinal surgery forced him to cede "provisional" authority to his brother 17 months ago. He has not been seen in public since, but remains the head of Cuba's Council of State, Cuba's highest governing body. (Photo courtesy Mr. Jaded, flickr.com)

Mexico Takes Top Prizes at Havana Film Festival

2007-12-15T09:00:00.000-08:00

Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas took the Grand Coral this week at the 2007 Havana International Film Festival for Luz Silenciosa, his film about Mennonites in northern Mexico. The film also won Best Direction (Reygadas), Best Soundtrack and Best Photography.

Other winning films included Brazilian film "El Ano Que Mis Padres Salieron de Vacaciones" by Cao Hamburguer, "El Otro" by Argentinian Ariel Rotter, "Madrigal" by Cuban Fernando Perez, and "Fiestapatria" by Chilean Chico Teixeira.

Baghdad, Yes; Havana, No

2007-12-14T23:26:00.000-08:00

Cuban-American, Carlos Lazo, is a sergeant and combat medic who recently served in Iraq. He testified this week to the Committee on Senate Finance about current Cuba policy that forbade him from visiting his two sons in Havana upon returning from Iraq. Following is an excerpt of his articulate statement:

In Iraq, I was risking my life on a daily basis. All I wanted to do was hug my boys and spend even a few hours with them. In a war, time is precious, life is uncertain, and this visit had profound significance to me.

I flew all the way from Iraq to Miami intending to board a plane to Havana from there. By that time, our government had imposed new restrictions limiting travel to the island. These new regulations, among other things, limits family visits by Cuban Americans to once every three years. The new rules also re-defined the concept of "family."

I served and I survived. After more than a year, and I completed my tour of duty in Iraq, I tried once more to visit my sons and family in Cuba. I was denied a license to do so. Not even the fact that one of my sons was gravely ill and in a hospital was good enough reason for our government to allow me to spend a few hours to travel to Cuba.

When I tell my American friends about the obstacles that stop Cuban Americans from visiting their family members in Cuba, they automatically assume that the restrictions have been imposed by the Castro government. Even after I explain the truth to them, they cannot believe that the travel restrictions were created by our own government.

Wouldn't it be better if the greatest ambassadors of democracy -- Cuban Americans -- could visit the island and relay our message of freedom and American values? What better way of promoting basic values intrinsic in our society that through people-to-people contacts.

These restrictions are cruel, they are inhumane, they are irrational, and they are unjust. Most of all, rules that prevent families from visiting, and helping, and loving each other -- are un-American.

Bush Gives De Palma A "Time Out" -- De Palma Obeys

2007-12-13T08:05:00.000-08:00

Legendary filmmaker Brian De Palma, the man behind such films as Scarface, The Untouchables and The Black Dahlia, was denied entrance by the US State Department to the screening of his latest film at the 29th annual Havana International Film Festival.

David Lynch (Inland Empire, Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet) was also barred from attending. Other attending dignitaries included Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Javier Bardem, and Gael Garcia Bernal.

"It seems my State Department could not offer me a visa," De Palma said.

In all, the festival features more than 500 films from around the world, including more than 40 from the United States. (Art by Shepard Fairey)

(Illegally) Blogging In Cuba

2007-11-29T23:10:00.000-08:00

Blogging in Cuba can get you in a heap of trouble (translation: jail), but that threat hasn't stopped hundreds of bloggers on the island determined to get their messages out. Lately, Cuban bloggers have taken to dressing like tourists, feigning accents and secretly using hotel internet lines (native Cubans aren't allowed inside tourist hotels).

Meet blogger Yoani Sanchez and her blog Generacion Y (Google-translated version here). Once inside the hotel, Yoani Sanchez has to write fast. Not only because she fears getting caught, but because online access is prohibitively expensive. An hour online costs about $6, the equivalent of half of what the average Cuban make in a month.

Independent bloggers like Sanchez have to build their sites on servers outside Cuba, and they have more readers outside Cuba than inside .

That is not surprising, since only 200,000 Cubans of the 11 million on the island have access to the World Wide Web. This is the lowest rate in all of Latin America -- and sadly ironic for a country with such a high literacy rate (97%).

Alonso Letter Stirs Support From US Entertainment Industry

2007-11-28T08:44:00.000-08:00

Cuba's legendary prima ballerina, Alicia Alonso, wrote a letter recently to the Bush administration expressing outrage over their plan to enact further legislation that would severely curtail cultural exchanges between Cuban and American artists.

Upon seeing the letter, a group called the US/Cuba Cultural Exchange (USCCE), an international network of artists, took the initiative to begin their own campaign. The combined efforts have resulted in a massive groundswell of support from prominent US artists, including Tom Waits, Sean Penn, Fox Music head Robert Kraft, Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker.

Alonso, who is also a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, stated in her letter, "Let us work together so that Cuban artists and writers can take their talent to the United States, and that you are not prevented to come to our Island to share your knowledge and values; so that a song, a book, a scientific study or a choreographic work are not considered, in an irrational way, as a crime."

The letter, along with the hundreds of signatures, will be delivered to the White House, and the campaign will be ongoing until changes are made to allow for a free flow of creative expression between the US and Cuba.

Click here to sign the petition.

Dubai Woos Cuba (But Really Wants To Marry The US)

2007-11-27T15:23:00.000-08:00

After two years of negotiations, plans are moving forward for Dubai Ports Worl d (a partly state-owned company in the United Arab Emirates) to invest $250 million in converting the decrepit port in Mariel, just west of Havana, into a modern container facility. A formal feasibility study has been commissioned.

The choice of Mariel, one of the closest points in Cuba to the US, is significant. The port is best known as the setting for a massive boatlift in 1980 when, over a period of six months, 125,000 cubans set off in flimsy rafts as Fidel Castro turned a temporary blind eye to those wanting to leave his poor one-party state. They were picked up and taken to the US by a flotilla of American yachts.

Mariel appeals to international port operators for the same reason -- its proximity to the United States. "This deal isn't just about getting goods to Cuba," said one analyst who had studied the project. It's about getting into the US market." American ports are close to capacity, and environmental restrictions make any big expansion of existing terminals unlikely. In a post-embargo world, Mariel (which is expected to be open for business in 2012) would be a well-positioned hub.

Dubai Ports World refuses to comment on the deal, but there's little doubt that the company is eager to gain a foothold, if not actually in the United States, then as close as possible to it. (Courtesy The Economist 2007/photo jimfrazier/flickr)

East Of Havana

2007-11-26T11:37:00.000-08:00

East Of Havana is a documentary about hip-hop artists in Cuba who have to dodge the law in order to perform the music they love.

The filmmakers faced problems on both sides of the cultural divide. The US government allows Americans to travel to Cuba only under limited circumstances (and this film wasn't one of those 'limited circumstances'). Once in Cuba, the filmmakers had to avoid Cuban authorities to get the footage they wanted.

Jeffrey Wells, from the SXSW Film Festival said, "The film says something quite interesting, which is that as much as Cuban citizens may fear the power of the government, the government fears its people and their freedom of expression exponentially more. The Buena Vista Social Club showed us one side of Cuban music and culture, but East of Havana finally reveals the voice of contemporary Cuban youth and the rise of a very different new generation."

Enough With The Che Murals!

2007-11-26T09:35:00.000-08:00

Travel photos from Cuba can be as cliche as a red Che' t-shirt. Do we really need to see more snapshots of Communist propaganda billboards, the decrepit 1950s Chevy, and that old lady in Havana chewing on a cigar?

Enter Martien Muldu r, a Dutch-born, New York-based photographer who captures Cuba from a decidedly different perspective. Martien is a minimalist, and if there's one thing Cuba has, it's space. Sure, Havana is on top of itself, but even in those confines, Mulder finds the fresh air, the white noise, the open expanse.

Be sure to check out her site.

"Camel Bus" Retired

2007-11-24T15:29:00.000-08:00

The worst of Havana's aging buses is called "the camel." It looks even uglier than that.

Actually it's a tractor-trailer that hauls a homemade double-humped cabin made of two bus shells welded together -- a peculiarly Cuban contrivance whose patchwork conjures up a post-apocalyptic image of transit.

While the big rig is depicted affectionately in political cartoons on state-run television, it also remains the starkest emblem of the island's transportation woes, especially at rush hour when commuters pack the 18-wheelers right up to their 300-person capacity. The camel will be replaced by a fleet of modern Chinese-made buses.

"The only difference is that sardines come with olive oil and tomato sauce," wisecracked Rafael Martinez, 34, a camel commuter who sat on a park bench in central Havana as about 100 other people waited in line for the next bus.

We Ain't No Jiniteras...

2007-11-24T08:33:00.000-08:00

It isn't all about Buena Vista Social Club.

One of the (positive) manifestations of Cuba's unique isolation is the brilliant underground music scene. Las Krudas is one of those acts -- check it.

These outspoken feminists are quick to dispel long-standing stereotypes of women in Cuba, as well as any notion of theirs being a weaker sex. The women of Las Krudas are brash, articulate, and give their typically male MC counterparts a run for their money.

Cuba Junky

2007-11-23T21:11:00.001-08:00

Want to lose yourself for a few hours? Dive into Cuba-Junky. It has all the basics you could ask for in a Cuban tourism site (exhaustive coverage of hotels, casa particulars, etc.), but also boasts a photographic collection that rivals the best on the net. Kids, artists, sports, religion -- the images are striking and memorable. Here's an image of Los Van Van's Mayito Rivera, one of Cuba's best contemporary musical exports.

Havana Galerie

2007-11-23T20:39:00.000-08:00

An amazing gallery dedicated to the most exciting and cutting-edge artists in Cuba exists in Switzerland of all places -- Zurich specifically -- Havana Galerie. Their site beautifully showcases more than 30 artists -- art lovers and art investors alike will be entranced... The painting to the right is by Havana-born artist Carlos Estevez.

Cuban Elections Set For January '08

2007-11-20T16:15:00.000-08:00

Cuba announced that national elections will be held January 20, 2008, to determine whether ailing leader Fidel Castro will continue as president. The date for national elections had not been previously announced, but earlier indications had been that they would not be held until March or April of '08.

There was no word on why the balloting will be held earlier than originally anticipated.

Anyone 16 or older can vote in Cuba and casting a ballot is not mandatory. Membership in the Communist Party -- the only legal political party on the island -- also is not required. (Photo courtesy Alex Castro)

Chess With Che'

2007-11-19T20:30:00.000-08:00

The world lost a good man today -- Victor Rabinowitz. He was 96, and died in Manhattan.

Rabinowitz was a leftist lawyer whose causes and clients over nearly three-quarters of a century ranged from labor unions to Black Panthers to Cuba to Dashiell Hammett to Dr. Benjamin Spock to his own daughter.

For much of his career, Rabinowitz teamed up with the lawyer Leonard B. Boudin, who died in 1989, to defend clients like Julian Bond, Daniel Ellsberg, Paul Robeson, the Rev. Philip Berrigan, Rockwell Kent and Alger Hiss. The pair did not take the espionage case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, only because they were already defending someone else accused of being a spy.

The two lawyers won the privilege of representing the new revolutionary government of Cuba as a client over a poolside chess game with Che Guevara at Havana’s Hotel Riviera in 1960. Guevara won, then gave them Cuba’s business.

It quickly provided considerable work. The United States banned Cuban sugar imports, and Cuba retaliated by nationalizing American corporate holdings. Rabinowitz defended Cuba’s position (in the case of Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino) before the United States Supreme Court in 1963. Rabinowitz contended that decisions of other countries about their internal affairs would not be questioned by American courts. In 1964, the courts agreed

Rabinowitz was a member of the Communist Party from 1942 until the early 1960s, he wrote in his memoir, “Unrepentant Leftist” (1996). He said the party seemed the best vehicle to fight for social justice. Krinsky pointed out that Rabinowitz did not join the party until after the Soviet Union and the United States became World War II allies.

1Click2Cuba 2.0

2007-11-16T13:25:00.000-08:00

1Click2Cuba debuted in 1999 -- basically as a hobby. A few years after it started, life moved on in other directions and -- the site paid the price. Today, nearly 10 years later, the goal is clear: bring 1Click2Cuba back to its former glory. Back in the day, 1Click2Cuba was one of the best sites on the internet dedicated to Cuban tourism and culture. Today? Well, like many once grand buildings in Havana, renovation is in dire need.

The work has begun. Take note, and watch the site as we slowly but surely re-energize the pages with beauty, wisdom and information. It's a new phase and a new direction. 1Click2Cuba 2.0, if you will.

Change seems to be a common (and welcome) theme these days -- change to the site, climate change, regime change, change locally, change globally. The coming months and years are sure to be a fascinating ride, both in the United States and Cuba (and the world in general).

Change brings inevitable challenges and surprises -- we look forward to the ride (bumps and all).